According to the German Advertising Industry Association ZAW (Zentralverband der deutschen Werbewirtschaft), the volume of German commercial communication trade increased to a total of 47 billion Euros (+2.1% vs. 2017).
The advertising industry could in large parts benefit from the good economic situation in Germany. Nevertheless, the figures presented show mixed results: The investments in classic advertising declined slightly by 0.9% to 26.8 billion Euros, resulting from the minus of net advertising revenues for the 12 media channels researched by ZAW (-2.4% to 15.8 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, although print media are almost predominantly in the minus, they still rank on the positions 2, 4 and 5 (newspapers, free sheets resp. trade magazines). TV remains the most powerful medium with 29% market share. Internet and mobile increased clearly by 7.1% and advanced to the third position. Increases were also measured for out of home and radio (+1,2% resp. +0.6%).
The data for the other forms of commercial communication that subsume the disciplines online search (with Google), sponsoring, direct marketing and others remained high with +2.3% to 20.2 billion Euros. The highest growth was achieved by search.
If the revenues from search were added to internet and mobile, digital advertising would be the most powerful advertising channel in the ZAW statistic with a total volume of 5.5 billion Euros.
To note that ZAW do not display the whole communication landscape of the digital world as many budgets go to content and influencer marketing not measured in the ZAW.
(ZAW 2018 vs. 2017)