Healthcare ad spend growing slower than rest of industry: Zenith

Last year, healthcare sector advertising spending grew 3.4%, about half as much as ad spending across all other sectors, according to a report from Zenith.

Healthcare ad spending will continue to lag behind the rest of the advertising industry for the next three years, Zenith predicted. In both 2019 and 2020, healthcare ad spend is expected to grow 3.6%, and in 2021, it’s predicted to grow 4.3%. Other sectors are expected to expand by more than 4% annually through 2021.

Television was again the largest channel for healthcare advertising in 2018, with 54.7% of spending, but the medium is slowly losing ground. Its share of healthcare ads fell about 3% last year, and will drop by between 4% and 5% per year for the next three years. 

Moving onto TV’s turf are out-of-home and internet advertising. By 2021, the report predicted internet ad spending will overtake TV spending, with web spend increasing to 46% and TV dropping to 42%. 

Last year, 39% of healthcare ads were on the web. Spending on internet ads is also the fastest-growing channel for healthcare, up 16% last year and predicted to continue that rate in the coming years.

However, two unexpected areas of growth in healthcare advertising are out-of-home and newspapers. Both made up small shares of total healthcare spending last year — 3.5% for newspapers and 3.6% for OOH — but both are growing at double-digit rates annually. The report attributed the growth in out-of-home to an increase in digital displays, while the boost in newspapers was driven largely by spending in India. 

India is the fastest-growing market for healthcare advertising, with ad spend in the country expected to grow by an average of 26% through 2021. 

Healthcare marketing spending in India was $700 million last year. The largest markets, the U.S. and China, saw $15.9 billion and $14.4 billion, respectively, in healthcare ad spend last year, making up 86% of the global market. 

The report measured spending in 13 markets: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Russia, South Korea, Spain, the U.K. and U.S.