The months-long closure of the Strait of Hormuz remains a serious test of global ad market resilience. WARC Media&#x27;s Alex Brownsell and Kate Scott-Dawkins, Global President for Business Intelligence at WPP Media, join WARC&#x27;s Anna Hamill to make sense of complicated dynamics for advertisers in 2026.<br><br>This episode of The WARC Podcast is sponsored by Criteo.

Economic volatility stress-tests the global advertising market

The WARC Podcast

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**Podcast:** The WARC Podcast

## Transcript

Welcome back to The WARC Podcast. I'm Anna Hamill. The global advertising economy has weathered many storms over the last 25 years, from the dot-com bubble to the 2008 recession to the COVID pandemic. But the economic impact from the close of the Strait of Hormuz is a serious test of global ad market resilience.

WARC Media's new scenario modelling, built on data from 100 markets and over 2 million data points, stresses three outcomes against a baseline of 11.5% year-on-year global ad spend growth in 2026. In each of these scenarios the total ad market still grows. In fact, global advertising revenue as a share of GDP is at its highest point since 1999.

Under the most severe conditions modelled by WARC in this report, nearly $94 billion in incremental spend disappears over the next two years. However, that damage is likely to be unevenly distributed across category and market. Then there's the impact of what we're seeing in the headlines every day. An increasingly painful energy crisis, price increases, and consumer sentiment hitting multi-year lows. Today I'm joined by two experts to make sense of these complicated dynamics.

Alex Brownsale is Head of Content at WARC Media and returning contributor Kate Scott Dawkins, Global President for Business Intelligence at WPP Media. This week, WPP Media released its this year-next year global forecast, which identifies some crucial trends to watch in the back half of 2026 and beyond. But before we crunch the numbers with them, here's a quick message from today's sponsor.

Today's episode of The Walk Podcast is sponsored by Criteo. Have you noticed the irony of modern performance advertising? The more channels you add, the harder it gets to see what's actually working. Criteo built Go campaigns to solve exactly that. One campaign that runs display, video, and social across the open web. AI handles targeting, bidding, and optimisation automatically. No platform hopping, no Frankenstein reporting.

Across more than 1,500 advertisers, Go campaigns delivers an average 9% ROAS uplift. And that's without your team having to touch a bid or rebuild a report. And right now, you can get $500 in ad credit when you spend $500. Terms and conditions apply. Find out more at criteo.com forward slash go campaigns. Alex, Kate, welcome back to The Walk Podcast.

Thanks for having us. Thank you so much. Glad to be back. WPP Media's latest research shows global advertising revenue as a share of GDP is at its highest point since 1999. And likewise, Walk is predicting 11.5% growth in investment this year to the tune of $1.3 trillion. And yet the consumer reality is somewhat undeniable. We're seeing consumers are financially squeezed and they are feeling pessimistic. Alex, I want to start with you.

Based on the data that you've been working on, what do you think is the main explanation behind what seems to be a contrast between the mostly optimistic outlook for a...

Economic volatility stress-tests the global advertising market

Transcript

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Economic volatility stress-tests the global advertising market

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.