Let’s see what this week’s numbers say about online advertising, shall we?

• Inflation has resulted in the decrease of all budgets, including the decrease in marketing spend  according to CMOs in the US. It may be impacting creative investments the world over, per results from LIONS’ State of Creativity Study, based on a survey of 2,400 marketers and creatives across 102 countries. That budget pressure likely owes to external forces. When asked to what extent the prospect of recession has impacted budgets for creative investment, a slight majority (53%) of brand leaders said that it had led to a decrease in investments, while a larger share (61%) of creative partners concurred.
• US out-of-home advertising has more than recovered from the pandemic, according to the latest figures from the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA). In fact, on the back of a 20.7% year-over-year increase, advertising revenues for this format reached $8.6 billion last year, outpacing the previous record set in 2019. Each of the four OOH categories experienced double-digit growth last year. Billboards remained the largest, at 72.7% share of revenues ($6.22 billion), followed by Transit (15.1% share; $1.29 billion), Place-Based (6.5% share; $556 million), and Street Furniture (5.7% share; $488 million).
• More marketers this year are forecasting a significant impact on their strategies from brand safety concerns.  Three in four marketing and advertising executives surveyed by Advertiser Perceptions agree that brands need more oversight and control over where their ads are placed, and who profits from those placements. According to the respondents,  paid social is the area of most concern for brand safety. Indeed, almost half (46%) identified paid social as a high concern in this regard. Beyond paid social, one-third are highly concerned by the brand safety risk of search, and about 3 in 10 of the risks of advertising in digital video (29%), display (29%) and mobile in-app ads (29%).
• Consumers are increasingly using major social media platforms. In a recent report, HubSpot surveyed more than 1,200 social media marketers around the world to learn about the platforms and formats they consider to be the most effective. For the purposes of building an active community, the respondents feel that Meta platforms are the best bets, with an equal 25% share pointing to each of Instagram and Facebook as their most effective, ahead of YouTube (14%) and TikTok (10%).