Worldwide total media ad spend is expected to record a growth of -4.5% this year to reach $614 billion. This is just slightly up from our previous forecast of -4.9% growth in June 2020, but a sharp contrast to our pre-pandemic estimate of 7.0%.

This year, digital ad spend in the US entertainment industry will drop by 6.9% to $7.03 billion.

Many people turned to social media in recent months to stay connected with friends and loved ones and to share information. But the pandemic didn’t increase the number of people using social networks or messaging apps.

As the coronavirus spread in the first half of 2020, we might have expected radical changes in the media behavior of consumers around the world. But for the most part, that didn’t happen. That’s just one insight to emerge from eMarketer’s newly released 2020 Global Media Intelligence (GMI) Report, a detailed look at internet users’ engagement with digital and traditional media in 42 major markets, produced in collaboration with Starcom Worldwide and GlobalWebIndex.

US TV ad spending is now expected to decline by 15.0% this year to reach $60 billion, down from $70.59 billion in 2019.

eMarketer junior analyst Blake Droesch and principal analysts at Insider Intelligence Debra Aho Williamson, Mark Dolliver, and Jeremy Goldman discuss how social media might change as a result of the continued spread of misinformation on the platforms and general negative sentiment surrounding them. They then talk about the best way to use Stories, influencer ad disclosure, and which consumer group has increased its social media usage the most during the pandemic.

Our new forecast for global mobile messaging app users shows that the pandemic has accelerated adoption of OTT messaging services, though not in every country nor to the same degree for every app.

Western Europe—particularly the EU-4—has always been a strong cash culture, and concerns about security have inhibited growth of mobile payments in the region. However, that’s gradually changing in large part because of the pandemic, as more consumers use cashless forms of payment to help curb the spread of the virus.

Many adults worldwide are feeling the effects of the pandemic, particularly on their mental health

From midnight on March 23, the UK government enforced the closure of nonessential retail stores in the UK as part of strict lockdown measures. This shuttering was only lifted on June 15. During those intervening 12 weeks, UK consumers wanting to purchase anything other than groceries or medications could not do so in-store.

Marketers have had to be nimble as they navigate during these uncertain times. Real-time data and feedback has helped many—including companies like UberEats and Chobani—stay on top of things and reach consumers with relevant content and marketing amid the pandemic.

As companies like Twitter and Microsoft announce long-term remote work policies, business leaders are grappling with what their return-to-office plan may look like.

What has been dubbed the “streaming wars” in many markets—especially in the US—is more like a skirmish in Canada. Despite the influx of US-based services like Disney+ and Apple TV+ in the past year, and the presence of homegrown services like Bell Media’s Crave nationally and Vidéotron’s Club Illico in Quebec, Netflix is still by far the most popular subscription OTT service in Canada.

eMarketer principal analyst Mark Dolliver, junior analyst Blake Droesch, principal analyst Jillian Ryan, and vice president of content studio at Insider Intelligence Paul Verna discuss the major digital pivot to reimagined events amid COVID-19. Then, the usual suspects talk about Twitter's fight against election misinformation, TikTok's potential rivals, untapped marketing to lower-income customers, ecommerce within YouTube, and how cats aren't as heartless as they seem.

Apparel manufacturing company Dickies recently launched a digital-first content campaign to build on its ongoing diversity efforts. Amid the pandemic, it had to be shot by the very creators highlighted in it, using their own devices.

In a challenging year for advertising worldwide, Germany will experience a slowdown similar to that of every other market we track. Germany’s digital ad spending had grown at double-digit rates for each of the past three years, but pandemic-disrupted 2020 will see that growth slow to just 0.8%.

Based on a bottom-up look at the market, eMarketer has updated our estimates of US digital ad spending this year. eMarketer forecasting analysts Eric Haggstrom and Peter Vahle, along with junior forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence Nazmul Islam, join eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Nicole Perrin to talk about the building blocks of the forecast, what we know about performance at major digital ad sellers, and how it all adds up to the whole. Plus, they put our digital forecast in the context of other major media.

The reports in this collection look at ad spending in the retail, financial services, computing products and consumer electronics, automotive, telecom, travel, health and pharma, media and entertainment, and CPG industries. Countries covered in this report series include the US, UK, and Germany.

TikTok’s future in the US is still uncertain, but any decision will affect a significant number of US consumers. We forecast that TikTok will have 65.9 million monthly US users in 2020, up from 35.6 million in 2019.

We previously expected there to be 80.5 million US pay TV households this year. We updated our forecast in August, and we now believe that figure will decline by 7.5% to 77.6 million. Our pay TV figures exclude virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs), which deliver live TV over the internet.​