Local advertising in California will reach $18.5 billion in 2017 across 12 geographic markets (including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento), according to BIA/Kelsey’s local market advertising forecast. Businesses in retail, automotive and general services (which includes a range of professional services from legal services to landscaping) will together spend nearly $8 billion, which will be divided between traditional media, online/digital and mobile media channels. While businesses in the real estate vertical may not be one of the big spenders in 2017, its local advertising spend is expected to grow the fastest of any of the verticals in BIA/Kelsey’s forecast, growing a projected 29% through 2021.
BIA/Kelsey’s local advertising forecast tracks 12 different media categories. The top five media categories where businesses are going to be spending their advertising dollars in California are:
- Direct mail ($4.6 billion)
- Over-the-Air TV ($2.7 billion)
- Online ($2.3 billion)
- Mobile ($2.0 billion)
- Over-the-Air Radio ($1.6 billion)
“Our California forecast reveals that advertisers still heavily trend to traditional advertising choices like direct mail and TV, however future growth favors digital advertising options,” said Mark Fratrik, chief economist and SVP, BIA/Kelsey. “As digital solutions mature, especially with emerging technologies like voice search and artificial intelligence that consumers are adopting at breakneck speed, there will be new opportunities for local advertisers to market products even more efficiently and effectively than today; hence we see a major shift in ad spend over the next five years.”
BIA/Kelsey will present its California market intelligence at its half-day LOCAL IMPACT Los Angeles event on Wednesday, June 7 in Los Angeles during the Share of Wallet session. BIA/Kelsey will present a thorough examination of where ad dollars are being spent across top media in local California markets and where they will migrate over the next five years. Joining this session is Chris Kraft, CEO of social media ratings company Share Rocket, who will explore the social activity of local California television stations, and Rob Weisbord, COO of Sinclair Digital Group (a division of Sinclair Broadcasting), who will examine how those stations can monetize online/digital opportunities.
