Advertising: Europe is growing, but spending is shifting towards digital platforms

European advertising is growing. But it is growing most of all where the money ends up in the coffers of the major global platforms. This is the picture – and, at the same time, the paradox – that emerges from the Confindustria Radio Televisioni report on advertising investment in the five largest European markets. In 2025, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italia and Spain will be worth a combined total of €123.3 billion: 5.7 per cent more than the previous year and 86.9 per cent higher than 2016 levels. The driving force, however, is one and the same: the internet.

Digital has reached 92.8 billion – up 10.1 per cent over twelve months – and now accounts for 75.3 per cent of all investment by the Big 5. Over the past ten years, it has grown by 246 per cent, adding around 66 billion. The rest of the market tells almost the opposite story: television, print, radio, cinema and out-of-home advertising combined are worth around 30.4 billion. Linear TV alone has fallen to 15.2 billion, a drop of 9.2 per cent.

Within this revolution, Italia occupies a unique position. The market has grown by 4.7 per cent to 11.7 billion, trailing the United Kingdom, Germany and France but ahead of Spain. Yet it remains the least digital of the five: the internet accounts for 52.5 per cent of investment, compared with 86.2 per cent in the UK, 71.4 per cent in Germany, 69.3 per cent in Spain and 67.4 per cent in France. By 2025, therefore, Italia too will have firmly crossed the symbolic 50 per cent threshold, but a gap of almost 34 percentage points will remain between Rome and London.

The most sensitive issue, however, is who benefits from this growth. In Italia, the major international players account for 82 per cent of investment in online advertising: a concentration higher than the 76 per cent recorded in France and the 72 per cent in Germany. The report thus highlights an increasingly evident divide: national operators continue to bear the costs of editorial production, innovation and regulatory obligations, whilst a growing share of advertising revenue is captured by a handful of global players.

It is not merely a shift in budget from print or TV to the web. The very nature of advertising is changing. The old boundaries between television, platforms, e-commerce and digital services are becoming blurred. Social media, retail media, video and digital audio are the areas where growth is concentrated; and the label ‘Digital’ itself now encompasses very different worlds, from search to Connected TV.