Digiday recently released the 2022 Media Agency Report, revealing the state and future of the media agency, client spending, staffing and beyond. In it, we examine key findings from the perspective of client spending and from agencies’ own investments, including:

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By Catherine Wolf and Li Lu

Media agencies are cautiously bracing for a potential recession — even as they grapple with inflation and supply chain issues. But despite the looming concern, media spending is holding steady or slightly increasing in 2022, according to respondents to a recent survey Digiday conducted for this inaugural media agency report. And the majority of respondents also expect spending to increase between 10-19% in 2023.

In its second quarter financial filing this year, Interpublic Group (IPG) noted that the agency holding company, “experienced growth, driven in our domestic market by growth across all disciplines, most notably in our advertising and media businesses … .” But it cautioned that its prospects for continued financial improvement, “could be affected by the course of the pandemic … the impact of any general economic slowdown … and the impact of continuing and unpredictable supply chain disruptions across the global economy.”

Indeed, agency executives who participated in a Digiday focus group on the state of media spending tempered survey respondents’ optimism about the coming year. Executives anticipated client spending will remain relatively flat or shift within channels depending upon the state of the economy, which is subject to change on a daily basis.

Despite recession fears, clients split on expanding, contracting or keeping budgets steady in 2022
With a recession looming and supply chain issues still leaving some store shelves empty, media agencies and their clients are weighing how to most effectively allocate media budgets in the remainder of 2022 and moving forward into 2023.

Agency respondents said clients thus far have been nearly equally divided on whether to increase, decrease or keep budgets the same in 2022, with about one-third of agencies selecting each category. In all, the results trended slightly toward cautious optimism with 34% of agencies saying clients increased their budgets and 31% saying they kept them the same in 2022. 33% said clients have decreased budgets.

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