Smart devices driving digital transformation
This change is enabled by the distribution of smart devices in German households. At the end of 2021, around 64 percent of German homes boasted a smart TV, with 33 percent of households having a smart speaker. Online media usage is on the rise. Of the 10.5 hours per day Germans spend with different media, three to six hours are spent online, subject to age. Seventy-five percent of this time is spent streaming music or video.
Big industry spenders
The biggest spenders in 2021 were Procter & Gamble Germany with advertising spending of EUR 1.8 billion, followed by Ferrero Germany (EUR 689 million), Amazon (EUR 542 million) Lidl (EUR 488 million), Telekom Germany (EUR 353 million), Rewe (EUR 350 million), and L’Oréal Germany (EUR 329 million). According to Forbes, some of the world’s top 100 most valuable brands are German owned. These include SAP, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Adidas, Siemens, Porsche, T-Mobile, Allianz, and Volkswagen – all companies with big budgets to maintain brand desirability.
Top three verticals
The three top verticals when it comes to advertising expenditure are grocery stores and supermarkets (EUR 2.6 billion), publishers and media (EUR 1.6 billion), stationary retail (EUR 1.6 billion) and online services (EUR 1.4 billion). There are around 28,000 classical advertising agencies in Germany. These can be found in all of the bigger cities, with Hamburg in particular standing out as a nationwide cluster of excellence. Of the 50 biggest owner-managed agencies, 16 are based in the northern city. The runner-up city is Munich, with four agencies.
Global adtech players
Germany is also advanced when it comes to modern advertising technology (adtech) companies. They help advertisers on different levels to make their marketing efforts more efficient by relying heavily on new technology. There are several German adtech companies among the global top players in their field. Adjust, for example, helps marketers measure the impact of their campaigns. Awin is a big affiliate network. Applift helps companies to acquire, activate and retain users. Remerge supports advertisers with their retargeting needs and CrossEngage makes it easy to stay in contact with users no matter which device they use. All of these adtech companies were founded in Berlin - the main hotspot for the industry in Germany. The amount of adtech companies in Germany makes it easy to find skilled employees in the field.