Amid unprecedented recessionary headwinds caused by the coronavirus pandemic, China’s total ad spending will downshift considerably, but remain in positive territory at 0.4% growth. This will make it the only national market we cover to see net growth this year. Digital ad spending in China, meanwhile, will grow by 5.0%.

The coronavirus pandemic has pushed UK ad spending into negative territory in 2020. However, digital ad spend will grow marginally, by 0.3%, fueled by the impressive performance of video ad spending—up 15.0% this year.

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eMarketer principal analyst Mark Dolliver, junior analyst Blake Droesch and principal analyst Nicole Perrin discuss Facebook’s Pinterest-esque app, virtual sports arena advertising, fines for mobile carriers selling customer location data, ads on top of Ubers, LinkedIn ‘Stories,’ which country has the most islands in the world and more.

In this episode hosted by eMarketer global director of public relations Douglas Clark, vice president of forecasting Monica Peart sheds light on how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting eMarketer’s traditional ad spending forecasts.

Insider Intelligence and its eMarketer team generate roughly 1,500 forecasts on digital transformation topics every year. These estimates are mainly produced on an annual basis, with several of the highest-profile metrics reassessed one additional time during the year.

Why it’s worth watching: 2020 forced agencies to pivot away from traditional advertising channels like TV and out-of-home advertising, but platforms still have a ways to go to make advertisers comfortable. The pivot to digital channels has coincided with dramatic changes in the way digital ad tracking works.

We expect advertisers will spend RMB6.60 billion ($950 million) to RMB8.96 billion ($1.29 billion) less on OOH ads in H1 2020 than they did in H1 2019.

As a result of the coronavirus, out-of-home (OOH) advertising was the most negatively affected medium, with growth revised down from our previous forecast by 26.3 percentage points. That was followed closely by radio, revised down by 22.0 percentage points. Digital ad spending will remain relatively flat this year, growing 0.3% to reach £15.08 billion ($19.25 billion).

Traditional media ad spending had a very challenging 2020, as abnormal socioeconomic conditions, driven by the pandemic, changed consumer behavior to the detriment of TV, radio, newspaper, magazine, and OOH advertising.

People are finding out about us through their friends, the dog park and media such as OOH ads, TV and social. We started trying out different ways to get our name out there, and we’re seeing people coming in from a variety of ways. Our most successful channel is word-of-mouth, and sometimes our advertisements are that extra push that they need.

Additionally, the fortunes of physical retail and out-of-home advertising may be intertwined: more foot traffic means more potential advertising impact.

“With advertisers booking multi-geo, dynamic creatives, it’s important that OOH ads are measured and verified so advertisers have assurance that their ads run as per their requirements. Having a third party providing this independent verification and measurement will be key for greater adoption of programmatic DOOH.”.

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It’s worth noting that bringing a branding focus to digital campaigns will also help offset the lack of out-of-home advertising, not to mention retail storefronts (many of which are now boarded up in cities like New York and Chicago).