Out-of-home, radio ads aid Latin America's traditional media spending rebound

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The news: Traditional media ad spending in Latin America will return to pre-pandemic levels this year.

  • As digital formats continue to gain more ad dollars, traditional media like radio and out-of-home advertising will still play an important role. Although its share of paid media outlays continues to decrease, we estimate traditional ad spending in Latin America will reach $15.85 billion by year-end, $4.6 million more than what advertisers spent in 2019.

  • Recovery times will vary by country. We expect traditional media to bounce back to 2019 spending levels next year in Argentina and Brazil. The same will occur in 2025 for Chile, followed by Colombia and Mexico in 2026. Peru will be the only country where traditional media ad spending won’t recover to pre-pandemic levels by the end of our forecast period.

Still reliable: Within traditional media, out-of-home and radio advertising remain effective ways to reach consumers.

  • A return to normalcy will fuel a boom in OOH advertising. This year, we expect OOH ad spending to exceed pre-pandemic levels in Brazil, Chile, and Colombia. Chile will be the only market where OOH’s share of total media spending will be greater than 10% through the end of our forecast period, but Colombia’s share of OOH this year will be more than double what it was in 2020, reaching $74.8 million.

Radio advertising will be incredibly relevant in Colombia. Internet users there spent an average of 1 hour, 10 minutes daily listening to broadcast radio content in H1 2022—one of the highest levels among Latin American respondents surveyed by GWI.