Global advertising is ending the week in a surprisingly strong position, with fresh data and deals underscoring both resilience and rapid restructuring.

WPP Media’s new “This Year Next Year” end‑of‑year forecast, released this week, now projects global ad revenue to reach about 1.14 trillion dollars in 2025, up 8.8 percent year on year excluding US political advertising, with a five‑year compound annual growth rate of 6.3 percent.[1] This is slightly more optimistic than mid‑year outlooks, driven by better‑than‑expected trade conditions and a boom in AI investment.[1]

Channel mix continues to shift fast. Commerce, or retail media, is forecast to hit 178.2 billion dollars in 2025 and for the first time overtake total TV ad revenue, while content‑driven advertising remains the largest bucket at roughly 663.5 billion dollars and 58 percent share.[1] Gaming is the fastest‑growing content channel, up nearly 30 percent to 8.5 billion dollars, although still less than 1 percent of total spend.[1] Traditional newspapers are stabilising around 31.4 billion dollars before resuming decline, and digital out‑of‑home is on track to reach parity with classic outdoor by the end of the decade.[1]

New data from Infobip this week signals how consumers are actually responding to marketers. On Black Friday 2025, rich communication services messaging traffic jumped 277 percent year on year, and promotional email volumes rose 241 percent, confirming that mobile messaging and email remain workhorse performance channels even as brands experiment with AI and retail media.[5] This contrasts with 2023 and 2024 narratives that predicted a sharper pivot away from email toward in‑app and social messaging.

Deals and partnerships also point to structural change. Out‑of‑home ad‑tech provider Broadsign has just acquired Place Exchange, with new investment from Crestline Investors, to build what it calls the most comprehensive programmatic digital out‑of‑home stack and to meet rising demand for more measurable, automated outdoor buys.[2] In sports marketing, the LA Kings announced a new multi‑year partnership with Twilio, which will put the customer engagement platform on away helmets and wire its data tools directly into fan communications before, during, and after games.[4]

Regionally, India continues to see rapid platform and measurement innovation. In the last 48 hours, AdCounty Media launched OpsisAds, an AI‑led mobile advertising platform with real‑time reporting, while Hansa Research introduced an independent digital video ad impact service covering YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, OTT, and other mobile video environments.[3] These launches respond to advertiser demands for transparency and cross‑platform effectiveness data in a market where social and streaming consumption are still climbing.

Compared with reporting earlier this year, the picture now is of an industry leaning harder into AI, retail media, and measurable digital channels, while using partnerships and acquisitions to modernise legacy formats like out‑of‑home and sports sponsorships and to keep pace with more demanding, mobile‑first consumers.

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This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI