Global ad spending is expected to drop by 4.4% to $425 billion this year — more than four percentage points worse than was predicted in December, according to a revised report released this week by GroupM, the parent company of media agencies including Mindshare and MediaCom.

In Canada, it is predicted that media investment will drop by 2.9%, or $9.6 billion, compared to 2008. (All figures U.S. funds.)

In its bi-annual This Year, Next Year report published in December, GroupM predicted that global ad spending would decrease by 0.2% in 2009. But in order to reflect the worsening in the economic environment, the media investment firm has changed its forecast.

The 2008/09 period is a more serious advertising recession in scale and duration than the post-dotcom disruption of 2001, says Adam Smith, GroupM’s futures director in London.

Canada still fares better than the U.S., where ad spending is expected to fall by 4.3% or $155 billion, and the U.K., where it will sink by 11.2% or $15.5 billion, according to the report. Emerging economies like Brazil and China are still expecting increases of 10.5% and 3.2%, respectively.

More detailed figures will be released in the June edition of This Year, Next Year, according to a GroupM spokesperson. But the outlook for 2010 is dismal. The most recent report cautions that the end-of-decade year will show a more severe decline as a result of marketing budgets devised in the throes of the current recession.

From Media in Canada