Is the reason you work in adland the fact it’s full of attractive people and you can often drink at your desk? Well, now there’s another reason to to be cheerful – you’re adding $40 billion to the economy every year, apparently!
According to a report by Deloitte Access Economics and commissioned and released this morning by The Communications Council, advertising spend contributes $40 billion a year to the Australian economy, or two per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
And ads aren’t just pretty and for filling in time between TV shows. According to the report, titled Advertising Pays: The Economic Employment and Business Value of Advertising, advertising increases competition which meant brands tried harder, products were better and prices cheaper for consumers.
For every dollar invested in advertising some three-dollars of value was contributed to the economy, the report found.
Deloitte’s John O’Mahony said of the study’s findings: “Advertising is often overlooked as an economic driver and yet it is responsible for driving more than $40 billion of growth.
“Advertising provides strong incentives for business to be more innovative and to offer better products and more competitive promotion in their efforts to win market share.
“Consumers enjoy the benefits of both competitive pricing and being better informed purchasers of goods and services,” O’Mahony said.
Of most benefit to the economy was retail advertising spend that the study said contributed $8.7 billion to the GDP of the economy. Next was car advertising ($4.6 billion), finance/insurance ($3.9 billion), real estate ($3.2 billion), entertainment/leisure ($2.9 billion) and government spend ($1.7 billion).
