Waze is shifting focus to what it calls “destination-based marketing” from location-based ads to highlight how its social navigation app helps mobile marketers reach on-the-go consumers. Read more…

Further Reading

Retailers and restaurants can use all the marketing help that Waze and Google Maps can offer, considering the prevailing trends toward e-commerce — especially the massive growth in mobile shopping. U.S. retail m-commerce sales are forecast to surge 30% to $269 billion this year (and by another 26% to $338 billion in 2020) from $207 billion in 2018, researcher eMarketer estimated this week. Amazon will benefit the most from that growth, given the popularity of its shopping app and mobile website. The skyrocketing growth in m-commerce will be about seven times bigger than the predicted 4.4% gain in total U.S. retail sales to $3.8 trillion this year, per the National Retail Federation. But at least a healthy economy and rising wages are giving consumers more confidence to shop.

The shift to e-commerce will continue to disrupt the retail industry, although it’s too early to tell how those trends will affect Waze and Google Maps. As online sales including m-commerce grow to 25% of total U.S. retail sales by 2026 from 16% today, 75,000 store locations need to close, UBS retail analysts Jay Sole and Michael Lasser estimated this week. That figure doesn’t include restaurants, although the diminished number of retail locations and growth of time-saving food delivery services will lead to fewer occasions to eat out. The number of meals bought from restaurants has fallen 14% from the most recent peak in 1998 — when the average American ate out 286 times a year — to 245 times last year, per researcher NPD. Fortunately for the industry, meals delivered from restaurants and eaten at home rose 6% last year, NPD found.

Magna raises 2019 forecasts

Magna raised its 2019 forecast for global advertising growth to 4.7 percent from 4 percent, as the macro-economic environment is expected to remain strong in most of the top advertising markets (United States, China, India), according to an announcement.

The company forecast U.S. advertising growth to slow to 2.4 percent, mostly due to the lack of cyclical events such as elections. Excluding the effect of cyclical events in 2018 and 2019, underlying ad spend will grow by 4.5 percent in 2019, compared with 5.3 percent in 2018.

Almost two-thirds of digital ad sales (62 percent) come from impressions and clicks on mobile devices (mostly smartphones). Mobile ad sales grew by 32 percent in 2018 while desktop-based ad revenue shrank 2 percent because of ad blocking and lower inventory.

Magna bases its forecast on net revenues of media companies instead of media spending by advertisers, the metric that Zenith and GroupM use.

Magna’s U.S. Market Forecasts

Net Advertising Revenues 2018
Size ($ m)
2018 Growth 2019 Growth
TOTAL OFFLINE 96,433 -4.8% -4.1%
National TV (incl. CE) 42,852 1.2% -3.1%
National TV (excl. CE) 42,105 -0.5% -1.5%
Local TV (incl. CE) 21,810 10.5% -16.3%
Local TV (excl. CE) 18,607 -4.1% -4.4%
Print 14,973 -16.7% -17.6%
Radio 13,232 -4.2% -4.5%
OOH 8,091 3.4% 2.4%
TOTAL DIGITAL 107,027 16.5% 12.2%
Mobile 70,662 30.5% 21.2%
Desktop 36,365 -3.6% -5.2%
Search 47,800 16.1% 12.5%
Video 13,147 25.8% 19.5%
Social 30,103 32.9% 21.9%
GRAND TOTAL (incl. CE) 208,149 7.5% 2.4%
GRAND TOTAL (excl. CE) 203,460 5.3% 4.5%

Zenith forecasts slower growth in 2019

Publicis Groupe’s Zenith forecast global advertising expenditure will grow 4.5% by the end of this year, boosted by the Winter Olympics, FIFA World Cup and US mid-term elections. Growth will then remain steady and positive for the rest of our forecast period to 2021, at 4.0% in 2019, 4.2% in 2020 and 4.1% in 2021, according to an announcement.

Amazon will benefit from the growing market for e-commerce ad spending in the United States. E-commerce advertising is more established in China, driven by investments by e-commerce platforms like Alibaba. E-commerce advertising has risen from 0.8 percent of all adspend in China in 2009 to an estimated 18.2 percent this year.

GroupM cuts 2019 forecast

GroupM, WPP’s media buying group, slightly cut 2018 growth estimates from 4.5 percent to 4.3 percent. 2019 growth projections were also lowered from 3.9 percent to 3.6 percent, with total new investment anticipated to reach $19 billion instead of $23 billion predicted earlier, according to an announcement.

Rising interest rates, China’s slowing economic growth and possible trade wars were cited as reason for the lower estimate.