An expected economic recovery in 2021 bodes well for Canada’s advertising market.

eMarketer senior analyst Paul Briggs, principal analyst Mark Dolliver and senior analyst Bill Fisher discuss how trust in the media is changing in the US, UK and Canada. They then talk about brands repurposing sports budgets, the English Premier League considering a direct-to-consumer streaming service and how advertisers' messaging tone differs between countries.

In 2020, digital video ad spending exceeded TV ad outlays for the first time in Canada. Digital video gained the most momentum of any format amid the pandemic last year, growing by 10.0% year over year (YoY). This includes both in-stream video formats (e.g., YouTube ads) and those outstream (ads appearing in social media feeds).

Our annual lookahead for Canada highlights some growth areas for brand marketers as well as the mediascape that’s evolving to serve them.

Our revised estimates for total ad spending in Canada this year show a big decline, mirroring what’s expected overall for the Canadian economy. Digital will hold its level after years of double-digit growth.

The coronavirus pandemic has upended 2020 ad spending projections, ours included. This report summarizes our H1 2020 Canada ad spending forecast, factoring in available information about the massive downturn in Q2.

With the coronavirus pandemic leading to a significant economic slowdown, we’re providing updated guidance to our clients about what we expect for ad spending during H1 2020. We finalized our most recent complete forecast on March 6, 2020, before the cascade of drastic social distancing and market declines began in the US. Since then, we have provided guidance through a series of "Analyst Take" notes on US ad spending. Guidance for US search, out-of-home, display, digital video and TV are now available. We also issued ad spending guidance in Canada, China, France, Germany and the UK. We will update our full-year forecast for ad spending again in June.