According to the German Advertising Industry Association ZAW (Zentralverband der deutschen Werbewirtschaft), the volume of German commercial communication trade increased to a total of 46 billion Euros.
Nevertheless, the figures presented recently by ZAW show mixed results: The investments in classic advertising grew slightly by 0.6% to 26.12 billion Euros. However, net advertising revenues for the 12 media channels researched by ZAW decreased by 0.3% to 15.31 billion Euros. This shows that the traditional media channels do not benefit from the positive economic situation and that companies are increasingly shifting their budgets to other channels. Regarding the traditional media channels, the winners are out of home (+11.4%) and internet and mobile (+ 8% vs. 2016). Increases were also measured for TV (0.7%), radio (2.2%) and cinema (5.2%). Consumer magazines showed again a decrease (-4.9%), but the minus was more moderate than in 2016 (-5.6%) and especially in 2015 (-9.7%). Newspapers recorded a decrease of 5.7%, but remain the second most strong advertising medium after TV.
The ZAW category Other forms of commercial communication that subsumes the disciplines online search (with Google), sponsoring, direct marketing and others at the same time experienced a solid growth of 2.6%.
To note that ZAW do not display the whole communication landscape of the digital world as many budgets go to content and influencer marketing that are not measured in the ZAW.
Despite the challenges, ZAW project a robust positive advertising market for 2018.