Ad Market Decelerates Again In April, Weakest In 19 Months

Come next year things are going to go from bad to worse. Senior marketers know it and are already making contingency plans. Read: rationalizing ad dollars. Less than a third (29%) of the world’s largest advertisers plan to slash ad dollars next year, according to a study of 43 multinational companies from the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and Ebiquity. Three quarters of the sample “agree strongly” or “agree” that 2023 budgets are under heavy scrutiny. Marketers are already being required to justify their investments. For many of them, 2023 will feel a lot like a recession. It’s not all doom and gloom. Some of those marketers surveyed (28%) claim they will invest more next year, per the study.

At a time when the ad industry is coming under fire from regulators, advocacy groups and grassroots organizations for helping fossil fuel companies greenwash their reputations and/or obstruct climate action, a majority of consumers believe it should be held liable for that role. That's the finding of a survey of U.S. adults conducted Monday by Pollfish for MediaPost. The survey, which was fielded in response to recent Congressional hearings on the subject, as well as an Institute for Advertising Ethics (IAE) informational webinar to help the ad industry benchmark potential threats related to its role promoting fossil fuel brands, found Americans are more concerned about the ad industry's role in obstructing climate change than simply greenwashing fossil fuel company reputations.

In a defeat for Meta Platforms, a federal appellate court late last week left in place a recent decision allowing Facebook and Instagram advertisers to proceed with a class-action fraud lawsuit over inflated metrics. Unless the Supreme Court intervenes, Meta must now face a class-action on behalf of all U.S. advertisers who used Facebook's Ad Manager or Power Editor to purchase ads on Facebook or Instagram after August 15, 2014. Meta hasn't yet said whether it will ask the Supreme Court to hear an appeal. The battle between Meta and the advertisers dates to 2018, when business owner Danielle Singer alleged in a class-action complaint that Facebook induced advertisers to purchase more ads, and pay more for them, by overstating the number of users who might see the ads.