Ad spend reached nearly US$ 2 billion in all of Central America in 2012, a 15% increase compared to 2011.

According to projections from eMarketer, ad spend in Mexico will grow by 32% in 2013, the most growth of any country in Latin America.

[According to new projections], in 2013 online ad spend in Latin America will grow by 23%, more than any other region in the world except for the Middle East.

Latin America will post 13% ad revenue growth in 2012, leading all emerging economies in the world.

In the Latin America region, Mexico will see the greatest percentage of its digital budget devoted to mobile......at 7.8% this year and reaching nearly 20% in 2016.

Ad spend in Brazil grew 13% in the first quarter of 2012, with more than 4 billion reales (US$1,9 billion) invested.

Broken down by media, TV maintained a solid lead, increasing 15.3% to BRL46.38 billion ($27.77 billion), while internet advertising recorded the highest level of growth, 70.6%, to reach BRL5.39 billion ($3.23 billion) in spending. IBOPE acknowledged that its online advertising figure for 2011 includes search spending for the first time, which accounted for a large portion of the increase.

Most of the growth in global ad expenditure is now coming from developing markets, which we forecast to contribute 58% of new ad dollars between 2011 and 2014. Asia Pacific, Central & Eastern Europe and Latin America are all expanding much faster than the developed world, driven by both their current economic performance and their future potential.

Among 36 global markets covered by the Nielsen Global AdView Pulse, Argentina reported the highest year-on-year quarterly increase of 28.5 percent.

Spanish-language TV bounced back after the U.S. ad market recovered and network, spot and cable were up 8.6%,17.4% and 3%, respecitvely in 2010. Magazines also saw a recovery, with ad spending up 13.3%.

U.S. marketers spend an average of 2.5% of their total company revenue on digital marketing activities, according to a new report by Gartner Inc.U.S. marketers spend an average of 2.5% of their total company revenue on digital marketing activities, according to a new report by Gartner Inc.

CMOs are projecting increased budgets across a number of other areas. They’re expecting to spend more on new product (8%, down from 9.4% in August 2012) and service (5.8%, down from 6.5%) introductions, while also forecasting an 8.1% increase in budgets devoted to customer relationship management (down from 9%), and 6.8% more spending on brand building (down from 7.5%).

As a percentage of overall firm budgets, B2C product companies devote the largest share to marketing (16.3%). B2C services companies had reported 16.8% share of budgets going to marketing in February 2012, but that dropped to 10.9%.

CMOs will spend more on new product and service introductions over the next 12 months. They are also forecasting a 9% increase in budgets devoted to customer relationship management.

Companies who drive more than 10% of total sales from the internet allocate more of their budgets to marketing (16.4%) than companies with less than 10% of their sales coming from the internet (10.2%).

According to a Duke University study, Social Media currently makes up an average of 7.6% of respondents’ total marketing budgets. This share of spend is expected to jump by more than 40% in the next year to 10.7%, and more than double to 18.8% in the next 5 years.

B2C product company marketers expect social media to make up 24.4% of their total marketing budgets in the next 5 years.

Now it’s the time to roll-up sleeves and build Mobile into an integrated marketing strategy. In 2012, marketers will spend $2.6 billion on Mobile advertising in the United States, and $6.5 billion August 2012 5 globally, according to eMarketer estimates.

Our data shows that the exact recommended share of the budget should be higher for marketers selling higher involvement products, such as automobiles and financial services – approximately 9 percent, and a bit lower for brands selling lower involvement products, such as fast moving consumer packaged goods.

Over the next 4 years, Mobile’s share of the media mix is projected to increase to over 10 percent.

As with previous months, digital (excluding mobile) and mobile channels continued to attract global spend in March, with index scores of 78.9 and 71.2, respectively. The press again experienced the largest reduction in expenditure, with a score of 36.1, although that was an increase from 33.5 last month. Radio also improved slightly from 39.6 to 42.3, though remained well below the threshold for rising expenditure. TV and out-of-home hovered around the neutral mark, at 48.8 and 48, respectively.

As with previous months, digital (excluding mobile) and mobile channels continued to attract global spend in March, with index scores of 78.9 and 71.2, respectively. The press again experienced the largest reduction in expenditure, with a score of 36.1, although that was an increase from 33.5 last month. Radio also improved slightly from 39.6 to 42.3, though remained well below the threshold for rising expenditure. TV and out-of-home hovered around the neutral mark, at 48.8 and 48, respectively.

Over the next three years we expect Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) to grow by an average of 10.4% a year, Central & Eastern Europe to grow 9.6% a year and Latin America to grow by 7.3% a year. The exception is the Middle East & North Africa, where political turmoil has disrupted media production and distribution, and made advertisers wary of attracting negative attention. We forecast the Middle East & North Africa to grow at an average of 1.3% between 2011 and 2014.

Over the next three years nearly half (48%) of all the world’s growth in ad expenditure will come from just ten developing markets. The four BRIC markets alone (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are forecast to account for 33% of global growth. Beyond the BRICs, there are six fast-growing markets we forecast to add between US$1 billion and US$4 billion each to the global ad market, and deliver another 15% of global growth: Indonesia, South Africa, Argentina, Turkey, Mexico and South Korea. In these ten markets ad expenditure occupies 0.32% of GDP, less than half of the world average of 0.70%, demonstrating their huge potential for further catch-up growth.

Despite overall growth of 5.7 percent for the advertising industry in Q2 2011, ad spending fell in nearly half the world’s key markets in the second quarter of this year as economic concerns continued to impact the advertising industry, according to Nielsen’s quarterly Global AdView Pulse report.

Global advertising in Q2 totaled USD127 billion (mainly based on published rate cards and four major media types), and the first half of 2011 closed with a +7.2 percent growth over the same period in 2010.

While radio posted the largest percentage increase among all traditional media in Q2 (+8.2%), overall television continued to dominate global advertising, accounting for 65 percent of total spend.

Nielsen reported that advertising revenue dropped in Q2 in 16 out of 36 global markets – the first significant decline since the Q3 2009 report when ad spend fell in more than half the markets monitored at the height of the global recession.

Global advertising in Q2 totaled USD127 billion (mainly based on published rate cards and four major media types), and the first half of 2011 closed with a +7.2 percent growth over the same period in 2010.

The decline in FMCG ad spend was particularly surprising as the Easter holiday, traditionally a key occasion for FMCG and confectionary advertising in Europe and North America, took place in late April this year, which should have pushed more ad revenue to the beginning of Q2, noted Beard. Within FMCG, cosmetics and toiletries posted the most robust growth of 6.9 percent and accounted for nearly one in every ten dollars spent globally.

eMarketer predicts advertisers around the world will spend nearly $500 billion in 2011—a growth rate of 4.5%. Online ad expenditures of $80.2 billion are growing at a rate of 17.2% and fueling total media ad spending growth.

Online advertising has become a crucial element in ad budgets worldwide and will account for 16.1% of total media spending across the globe in 2011. By 2015, online advertising will comprise nearly 22% of total media spending.

Total global ad spend, forecast at $465.72 billion for 2011, is expected to grow about 12% to about $519.86 billion in 2013.

52% of B2B marketers plan to increase their marketing budgets.

Global advertising spend rose 8.8% year-over-year in Q1 2011 to total $118 billion USD based on published rate cards, according to Nielsen Global AdView Pulse data. Nielsen analysis indicates heavier TV spending, as well as increased investment in the Latin American and Asian consumer markets, drove growth.

“With $6.50 of every $10 being spent on TV, it’s clear that TV remains the most important and cost-effective advertising medium for companies looking to reach new consumers, especially in booming emerging markets,” said Nielsen Global Head of Advertiser Solutions Randall Beard.

Growth in emerging regions of Asia-Pacific (12.4%) and Latin America (11%) drove global ad growth in Q1 2011, followed by Middle East/Africa, which still increased 10.4% despite a 51.3% decline in Egypt’s ad revenue as most companies temporarily halted advertising during the country’s social and political upheaval.

In addition, ad spend for fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) increased 14.6% in 2010, and the sector’s share of ad spend also increased 4%, from 23.9% to 24.9%. Regionally, FMCG spend grew by more than the global average in Middle East/Africa (34.3%), Latin America (23.9%) and Asia Pacific (16%).

Emerging markets attracted advertisers to new booming markets in Pan-Arab (+43%), Egypt (+40.8%), and Argentina (+38.9%), which recorded the highest percentage advertising increases.

Latin America, in addition to posting the second highest regional ad spend increase (+21.2%) in 2010, spearheaded by Argentina, also benefited from the highest ad increases across the financial (+37.2%), entertainment (+17.8%), clothing/accessories (+22%) and media (23.8%) sectors.

On a worldwide basis, social networks are also increasing their representation. Of the nearly $69 billion marketers will spend on online advertising worldwide in 2011, 8.7% will land on social networks, rising to 10.2% of $79 billion in 2012.

98% of travel industry respondents said they would increase or maintain travel industry marketing spend in 2011. Some 56% said they would increase; 42% said they would maintain budget levels.