← Behind the Numbers: an EMARKETER Podcast
Behind the Numbers: an EMARKETER Podcast
Navigating Tariffs: How Advertisers Are Weathering the Shifting Storm | Behind the Numbers
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- [00:01]
Marcus
Want to reach your customers where they're already talking? Over the past decade, giphy has built a platform used daily by millions. Everywhere. Conversations are happening now. Giphy Ads enables brands to connect with their audiences through ads. People share, not just see. For more, head to ads.giphy.com that's ads.g I P H Y.com hey gang. It's Friday, May 16th. Zack eating Ethan and listeners, welcome to behind the Numbers, any marketer video podcast made possible by giphy. I'm Marcus and today we'll be discussing how much consumer spending will take a hit in Q2, the three directions ad spending could go in, and how marketers are reacting. Join me for that conversation. We have two people. We start with our senior forecasting analyst based in Utah. It's Zach Goldman.
- [00:53]
Zach Goldman
Hey, Marcus, thanks for having me.
- [00:55]
Marcus
Hello there. Of course. Did you move there? Because I just kept telling people that's where you were. Anyway, I feel like you did it because I just kept telling people that you're based in Utah and then having to correct it. So did you not do it for me?
- [01:05]
Zach Goldman
I moved here because the snow is always snowier on the other side of the mountains.
- [01:11]
Marcus
Okay.
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Zach Goldman
That's the saying that they say.
- [01:13]
Marcus
No one says that. I thought not for me. Didn't move for me.
- [01:16]
Ethan Kramer
Great.
- [01:16]
Marcus
All right, fine. Principal forecasting writer living in New York, Ethan Kramer, Flood.
- [01:20]
Ethan Kramer
Hey, Marcus, would you move for me? It's been a minute. You know, I don't need to move for you because I'm already here. Zach was just on this long term process trying to avoid inevitably trying to find himself coming back to New York.
- [01:34]
Zach Goldman
City, finding myself all season. Come on now.
- [01:37]
Marcus
You're gonna gap year next. My God, man, stay still. Anyway, today's fact.
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Zach Goldman
My gap decade.
- [01:47]
Marcus
Why is the.
- [01:49]
Zach Goldman
Why.
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Marcus
Why is the NBA trophy called the Larry o' Brien trophy? Do you guys know?
- [01:54]
Ethan Kramer
Whoa, that's a good sports. Normally I'm pretty good on the sports trivia, but no, I do not know.
- [02:00]
Marcus
I had no idea. I looked this up a few years ago, so I knew what they did, but I didn't know much about the person and it's fascinating. So Larry O' Brien served as the NBA commissioner from 1975 to 1984. Born in 1917 in Springfield, Massachusetts, coincidentally where basketball was invented. He went on to be the Postmaster General, a special assistant to the presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and he was the national chair of the Democratic Party. He made the transition from politics to sports in 1975 by becoming the commissioner of the NBA and his contributions to the world of basketball, they're almost endless. He spearheaded the merger of the ABA American basketball.
- [02:40]
Ethan Kramer
That was going to be my guess that if you put the two together, then maybe that's why the trophy is named after him.
- [02:45]
Marcus
Yep, put the two together. He signed a huge TV contract with cbs, negotiated a historic collective bargaining agreement with the NBA Players association, modified the college draft, expanded The NBA from 18 to 23 teams, and also in 1979, adopted the three point shot.
- [03:03]
Ethan Kramer
Yeah.
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Zach Goldman
Soon to be rid of.
- [03:06]
Ethan Kramer
Yeah, I was gonna say he so fundamentally it's his fault that the game eventually got ruined. Although, you know, it took 30 years.
- [03:12]
Marcus
Sorry Larry, I thought this was this took a turn. We're trying to celebrate you. Anyway, today's real topic, how advertisers are weathering the tariff turmoil. All right, gents, Americans are downbeat on the economy. They keep spending anyway, writes Rachel Louise Ensign of the Wall Street Journal. Retail sales were up 1.4% from February to March, according to the Commerce Department, and consumer spending was up 2% year on year in Q1. However, the US economy contracted an annualized rate of 0.3% in Q1, first drop in three years. And Ms. Ensign was writing that economists say there is a good chance that a slowdown is imminent as folks who are spending more now to get ahead of tariff related price increases might spend less in the future. However, high prices doesn't always lead to people tightening the purse strings, like when the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index fell sharply from mid-2021 to mid-2022 when inflation was sky high but Americans kept spending. Zach, how much will consumer spending take a hit in Q2 out of 10?
- [04:29]
Zach Goldman
Well, as before I get into Q2's impact, I just want to put on a little bit of a touch on Q1's numbers where our GDP number does take into consideration net exports versus imports and net imports shot up by 50% year over year in Q1, which really just shows that merchants were bringing in inventory in anticipation of the tariffs that would come. There's also government spending too, which did lower our overall spending. So Q1, not a great quarter. But as we do take a look at earnings, it did show to be pretty, pretty healthy. I would put Q2's impact of consumer spending at a 7 out of 10. It's getting there. It will be impactful, but it's not the end of the world. So Liberation day start on April 2 getting of Q2. And as we did see that deceleration happen in Q1, what we're going to see is that the broader overall economy will have a lag. Not all these impacts from tariffs are going to happen immediately. Many of them were actually offset, pushed back, except for that of China. But then again, with all that inventory, those brought in in Q1 and early Q2 as well, we're going to see that shift over towards consumers. It might take towards the end of Q2 or Q3 or later on for those prices to really be reflected onto that consumers. So it will have a big impact, but I think we'll have to wait and see of how long it'll take for those prices to go onto the consumer after.
- [06:08]
Marcus
Yeah, yeah, we haven't really noticed much yet. There's going to be some rumblings and there is some signal there. But because the tariffs really kicked in kind of April, as you mentioned, which is key too, we haven't quite noticed. And also some other reasons that people might not have noticed that things might be getting worse. Some traditional measures of how things feel are pretty okay. Even though economists look at kind of the jolts, numbers and company earnings and things like that. Consumers are paying attention to gas prices which haven't moved in six months, the unemployment rate which has been 4% for the last three years, and inflation which is higher than the Fed's target, but still low. So Ethan, it seems like people are still the title of that. What's your general article? People are still spending despite there being some nervousness in the market.
- [06:57]
Ethan Kramer
Yeah, that was a good segue. You didn't know what I was planning on saying, but you led me right into it. So I would put my number a little lower than Zach's. I mean he said seven. I was going to come in with maybe a five at best in terms of the impact because you specifically asked about Q2 and frankly we're halfway through Q2 already and there hasn't been all that much evidence. And the enormous amount of front loading that happened in Q1 which led to that GDP drop is going to allow retailers to put off price hikes. They have enough stock and enough inventory to avoid that sticker shock outcome that may be coming down the line. So had you asked for our full 2025 outlook, that would be a lot more pessimistic. Interesting, because in order to sort of rescue the year overall, we're going to need a whole lot of positive outcomes from these upcoming trade negotiations, which is possible, but not likely and particularly not likely given that China is at the core of this issue. But you know, he came out with the Liberation Day massive Shock to the system was almost entirely withdrawn within a week, except for China. And so now we're dealing with a scenario where it's a 10% tariff rate on most things for most countries and then one big hit from China. If you add that all up, you kind of end up in the middle of the road in terms of the negative outcomes that we're likely to see in the second half of the year once all of the inventory is exhausted and once the ramifications of everything that may happen come through. And then also these 90 day pauses that, you know, it's possible that some of those tariffs will ramp back up. Right. We could go in a lot of different directions, but I think we probably, we probably still have the rest of Q2 and on a sort of medium trajectory before we start to really see these impacts.
- [08:44]
Zach Goldman
Yeah, I do want to talk a little bit more about why I was a 7 out of 10, not less, where Ethan is at. So our consumer sentiment in the US is now at one of its lowest levels it's been in many years. So consumer sentiment is low then. Also, even if consumers are buying at the moment, manufacturers and retailers don't know what to do in the short to medium term. And the long term right now is impossible for them. So we have had companies as of their Q1 earnings say that they're not going to forecast out guidance into Q2. Normally when you're not forecasting out guidance, that's not a great signal. We've heard that from social network companies like that of Snapchat and automakers as well. So I think Q2 is going to be a very mixed bag among retailers and manufacturers. And it's going to be a wait and see game.
- [09:37]
Marcus
Yeah, yeah. There are some worrying signs. You mentioned the University of Michigan. Is that the consumer confidence. Yeah. That you mentioned. It's down to 52 points, which is a historic low. It was 57 in March, which was already bad. Then you've got the Conference Boards consumer index that fell for the fifth straight month in April, reaching pandemic levels. Job openings down to 7 million in March, below expectations and 12 points, 12% year over year. So all of that, not ideal. And then some other concerns about the future as well. Conference Board's measure of consumers future expectations fell to its lowest level in 12 years. And the Michigan survey found folks expect prices to be about six and a half percent over the next year versus the 5% they were expecting just a month ago. That's the Highest reading since 1981 to people nervous, not just about now, but the future too. So you're a lot of the.
- [10:30]
Ethan Kramer
Let me, let me cut in also to. Ultimately we need to narrow this conversation down to what impacts the kind of stuff that we are here to cover. So you asked about consumer spending and that's like the biggest possible way to look at this. And I agree that all that consumer confidence indicator revelations will lead to pretty bad outcomes, particularly in the second half. And it's a perfectly reasonable to think that we're in for a rough year once all this comes to pass. But there's also retail spending, right. Which is more along the lines of, of what we and many of our clients, the people that pay us to think about this stuff are focused on. And as consumer confidence dips, the way in which that impacts spending is different depending on what sector you're talking about. So it's entirely plausible or maybe even overwhelmingly likely that we're going to see a pullback in spending. But the way that this has happened recently is that it has a bigger impact on things like travel spending. Big ticket items, certainly auto could be in for some big trouble as prices rise and people simultaneously don't want to spend, you know, home furnishings, home redevelopment, these big, big ticket items that people are going to feel that either, either the prices have skyrocketed or they just don't want to spend that money now anyway because they're not feeling good. But on the flip side, that enduring spending does tend to continue to manifest on a lot of the retail stuff that we talk about, which directly relates to the ad spending stuff that we're about to talk about. People don't spend money on plane tickets and then they just keep right on spending on retail goods and they keep right on, you know, they sit on the couch and they watch the streaming services because they're not going to restaurants and bars, but they're still going on E commerce and they're still buying just as much as ever. So both, both the retailers and the manufacturers and then the advertisers have to assess, you know, where they sit in this bucket because some folks are probably going to be fine. Some things are going to just keep right on going because that wallet share is going to just, is just actually going to. Some people might even benefit, you know.
- [12:40]
Marcus
If, yeah, it depends on what you're spending on. There's a civic science survey showing around 60% of Americans are cut spending on non essential shopping, dining out. And we're buying more generic brands, close to 30%. We're buying fewer coffees and alcoholic drinks. So it does depend on what you're going to be purchasing really quickly. Before we get to some of the ad spending numbers, I thought this is fascinating as well. It kind of depends on who you're talking to based on how bad things feel or seem because. And that person you're talking to, it depends on who they voted for for president. Because when Biden got elected in 2020, Republican sentiment fell 50 points from 125 to 75 and the Democrats did the opposite. When Trump got elected in 2024, the reverse happened. So it really is kind of completely different universes that people are living in in terms of how they feel about how things are going. And then on top of that, you can kind of keep spending and cover up how bad your finances are. Just like the financial crash, people didn't realize how bad things were until they kind of got to that tipping point. Bank rate survey showing a share of Americans who would use savings to cover up major unexpected expense fell from 44% to 41% in the past year. And that's not by choice. A quarter of Americans don't have any emergency savings at all. Highest percentage since 2020. So some worrying signs. But we are only just getting into the Q2 and beyond to really the kind of real impact, to feel the impact of these tariffs, if we're going to at all. Ethan, you writing your latest research that tariff chaos has ensued since our ad spending estimates were released in Q1. Before any of this, creating profound uncertainty, lowering the floor on the worst case scenarios. Our original estimates remain in play, you say as the best case, but we have also built alternative projections. So what are these three scenarios that we now expect for total media and digital ad spending?
- [14:28]
Ethan Kramer
Yeah. Marcus, let me tell you how much fun it has been to be in the forecasting world over the last month and a half. Yeah, yeah, I just left. I was like, I'm out. I can't do this, guys. You just have to do this because this is just, this is just right. Yeah, so this is our job. Our job is to like, figure out what's going on and then project forward. Right. And in general, we try very hard to avoid scenarios based forecasting because that's, you know, it's a little bit of a cop out. It's like, well, it could be good, could be medium, it could be bad. Thanks, thanks. Yeah, we know, could be good, could be anything, could be bad, really. And so our mission is not to do that. Our mission is to find one way forward and then people can base their business planning on that and what they think of it either above or below or whatever. But every once in a while it is just impossible or just not that valuable to only come out with one projection when everyone knows that this is just an impossible situation. The last time this happened, of course, was when the pandemic broke out. Is the. That's we have, we haven't had to do any scenarios based forecasting since then, but we went back to that bag now because how could you not. So, and then Zach will talk a little bit about what went into some of these scenarios, but just at the top line, you know, we'll just talk about overall total media ad spending and then digital ad spending. We got, we have scenarios for a bunch of the subcategories as well. But just for now, you know, our original case when we were looking at this at the end of Q1 before everything went haywire, was already a little bit subdued. So we had already sort of had growth reductions in the pipe across most of our major categories. So total media ad spending going down to 6.7% growth for about 420 billion. That's still fine, but it's not.
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Marcus
That's also 12% the year before.
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Ethan Kramer
Right.
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Marcus
So it is down a fair amount, but still healthy.
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Ethan Kramer
It was down a fair amount because we anticipated trade hostilities, we anticipated inflation, we anticipated a somewhat of a difficult year for the economy, but nothing too over the top. That now, as you just mentioned, becomes our best case scenario because the only way we're going to hit those already sort of pessimistic numbers is if things quickly go back to normal or something close to normal, because we did bake in some assumptions under, under a Trump tariff regime, like we knew something was going to happen. So it's possible, however unlikely, that a lot of things will get resolved over the next, quickly maybe over the next couple of months and then maybe that will come back into play. That's not likely. So we now have a sort of moderate case and a worst case scenario. And the moderate case is maybe where we are now, which is that a lot of those extreme tariffs have gone away for most of the countries in the world, although temporarily. China still very, very bad. Yeah, China is still very, very bad. Which is the most important one or one of the three most important ones. And then a mixed picture for Canada and Mexico that gets US down to 3% growth for the year. For total media, you know, you're shaving off 15 billion of what could have been. So we're down just over 400 billion in that case and then our worst case scenario which would, which basically just means going back to what Liberation Day would have been. Right. If, if, if we don't get negotiated resolutions, China doesn't. The China, there's basically a total block on trade with China right now. Everything goes back to what it could have been had nothing changed after Liberation Day. You're talking about a decline in outright negative growth for total media ad spending in the US this year which hasn't happened since 2009, right after the big financial crisis. And that drops the spending back under 400 billion 16 years ago. It's been 16 years since we've had an outright decline in ad spending. Obviously the advertising industry has done well quite a while now, mostly thanks to.
- [18:14]
Marcus
Digital and that's a 0.4% so it's not a 5% but still it's, it's.
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Ethan Kramer
The going in the wrong direction, just a slight decline.
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Marcus
You mentioned digital. So what, what does, what's digital look like real quick?
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Ethan Kramer
So digital looks a little bit better. We don't have. Our worst case scenario for digital still involves growth. I mean you know, which, which indicates that our just traditional media that will really just plummet in the event of the worst case scenario. So digital, you know, if everything quickly goes back to normal, we've still got it growing double digits 11.8%. That's low for digital but it's not bad. But, but if, if worst case scenario we've got it going under 5%. There's basically $20 billion at stake between the sort of best case, which is not really that great of a case, and the worst case. That's what nothing they could be losing out on.
- [19:02]
Marcus
Yeah, yeah. It seems like a lot of other folks also have have downgraded their forecast. I was going through some of the Magnus 2025 forecast fell from 4.9% to 4.3%. Madison Wall lowered theirs from 4.5 to 3.6. Citi analysts said they expect 2025 US ad spending to be below, sorry to be 6% below their pre tariff estimates. Waq shaved $20 billion off its ad spending expectations over the next two years. And Moffat Nathanson, they think if the economy enters recession, US ad spend could fall 6% this year. A few weeks ago they were estimating a 6% growth. Zach, talk to us a bit more about what went into these estimates.
- [19:44]
Zach Goldman
These forecasts in general are a blend of different macro factors from anything from GDP trends. We're looking at recent developments within the economy. Then we're looking at more platforms Specific, like earnings reports, platform level data. If there are interviews that we can get, we take those into consideration too. But for this forecast in particular, we want to take a look at how these tariffs could impact specific companies. From there, we're able to dig into which companies were exposed to Chinese tariffs, which ones were more exposed to the domestic market as well. So which companies could likely fare better. We're also taking into consideration what industry formats and channels and companies were more exposed to industries that had impacts from tariffs like that of automotive. If automotive was very impacted, that would likely have a bigger impact on tv. So all that was going into our consideration for this forecast as well. I think it's really important to note that you can't separate the tariffs away from the overall economy. So as we came up with our different scenarios, we had taken consideration how consumer sentiment was changing the overall shape of the market. Because even if all these tariffs were taken away a day after Liberation Day, the market still would not be at the same position it was the week prior. That is because companies don't know how to handle and to invest a month or a year down the road. So all of that really was also taken into consideration of our forecast as well.
- [21:27]
Marcus
Yeah, I will say I thought it was a good point from Seb Joseph of Digiday. He was saying there's a broader truth at play here, though, one that predates this particular economic cycle. The events of the past three years have merely accelerated what was already inevitable. Advertising's return to slow, steady growth after a period of uncharacteristic exuberance, saying the days of double digit growth spurts fueled by the unchecked expansion of programmatic and social media have ended. The only real surprise is how abruptly the shift arrived. President Trump's policies were the accelerant. So, I mean, we did have growth, you know, pretty high last year coming down already. But to the scenarios that Ethan laid out is whether it's going to fall from, you know, 12% to 7 or 6, or whether it's going to go from 12 down to zero. Basically, yeah.
- [22:15]
Ethan Kramer
I mean, we would agree with that take in general. But you know, retail media ad spending is still easily growing in the double digits. CTV ad spending still easily growing in the double digits. So you don't have to look too far under the hood to find that exuberance. It still exists. But yeah, at the highest levels, sure. We're not going to see the kind of growth that we saw through the late 2010s and early 2020s.
- [22:39]
Zach Goldman
But I think to that point, I think it's fair to say that all digital isn't created different. And Ethan's report, we go over how the different formats and channels could be impacted. One of them that we do think will be relatively safer is with search in a rougher economy. Search is a safe haven when the economy tightens. Marketers are trying to prove ROI and they go towards performance driven channels. Meanwhile, we can look at other channels like that of social. And social is a very double edged sword. A few of the platforms are very exposed to China. We expect a lot of pullback there. We're already seeing it from some of the biggest Chinese retailers like Tamu and Shane. However, people are looking to Meta as a very proven company that they can continue to invest in. That being said, with Social too, it's very easy to be able to take out your ad dollars and then pull them back in just one of the most flexible ad markets. So I don't think that we're going to see equal shifts across different formats with this gent.
- [23:49]
Marcus
So our Zach Stambor is recently writing that whilst US retailers entered the year on relatively solid footing following a strong holiday season, they've quickly found themselves on shaky ground. He says the chaotic and fast changing nature of the Trump administration's policies have made medium term planning difficult and long term planning nearly impossible. Ethan, how are marketers reacting?
- [24:13]
Ethan Kramer
Yeah, oh, how are marketers reacting? All right, well, I thought you're asking a different question, so I'll say that. Yeah, yeah, I'll answer both of them. So the freezing of decision making and the absence of investment is part of the reason that I'm more convinced than ever that H2 will show these pretty bad effects that we're expecting because this is going to be a sort of domino effect. Everyone is frozen in place, not just. And marketers are as well. Right, so that's part of, part of the answer to your question, but sort of the entire US business community is frozen in place. That doesn't necessarily mean that the economy is going to collapse, but there's sort of growth opportunities that aren't being seized because no one, everyone's afraid to do anything right now. They don't know what the situation is going to be, so eventually the ramifications of that are going to play out. So if you're a marketer, this sort of goes back to what we said in the beginning. You got to figure out what sector you sit in. What am I selling? Am I selling goods, services? There are folks for where things are going to be fine. Right. Non discretionary spending, grocery food, possibly even regular retail sales might be fine. So you're going to, they're going to take a cautious approach. Ad spending isn't going to drop off a cliff. If you're looking for old school growth, no, that's not going to appear. But if our conversation, instead of, instead of like looking for spectacular growth, our conversation should be like, is the floor going to fall out? Is a disaster on the way? And for some folks is no, it's probably going to keep right on going. Retail media ad spending. So some folks are going to be heavily impacted by the absence of Chinese retailers like, like Sheehan and Teemu. We're going to see that shave off some potential growth from the social network companies and from search. But for a lot of other folks, particularly in the retail space, American consumers are going to keep spending, so they're going to keep advertising against that. At the margins is where we're going to see maybe some disasters. Right. You're going to see some real, real bad outcomes for certain businesses in certain industries. But overall, I think most marketers are going to kind of just power through this unless they happen to be in one of those really vulnerable spaces.
- [26:24]
Marcus
Okay, Zach, how about for you? It does feel kind of like an unnerving calm before a potential storm. And advertising holding company Omnicom reducing the lower end of its expected range for organic growth this year, saying it was unsure how or whether tariffs will impact marketer client spending since they haven't seen any specific instances of clients pulling back so far. However, Moffatt Nathanson was saying that ad holding companies aren't always the best kind of canary in the coal mine for economic downturns. But it's still a data point that should be taken into consideration. What's your take on how market is reacting?
- [27:01]
Zach Goldman
Yeah, well, I feel bad for marketers. First of all, it's not easy to plan and as a forecaster myself, it can be nearly impossible. So what a marketer needs to do, stay involved with the news, hear what's going on. Tariffs kind of plan your short term out that way. But I think what marketers are going to do is what they always do during turbulent times. They're going to clamp down more on experimental spending and reallocate more towards safer bets like search. You're also going to see them lean harder, more into the tribally, which means Google, Meta and Amazon, they already have over 60% share of the digital ad market. I think we could see that continuing to grow as well this year too. People want the safe bet. I think that's it. As we see that Chinese advertisers leave the space that's going to make CPMs, especially on social network companies, drop, I think that we could also see some domestic players too take advantage of those lower CPMs and increase up their advertising spending. So leaving room in what is that vacuum?
- [28:12]
Marcus
It does seem like every advertiser is concerned. There was some research from the IAB. 94% of US advertisers are worried about the impact of tariffs. With half, I don't know what the other 6% are up to. With half planning to reduce their budgets. Of those who are planning to reduce their budgets, 60% expect ad budgets to drop between 6 to 10%. A further 22% expect them to drop between 11 and 20%.
- [28:38]
Ethan Kramer
If that comes to pass, that is bad news. I mean that would be like the low end of our. That would be our worst case scenario. So it's possible because people are in a very, you know, that that could happen, but I, I don't think it'll be that bad.
- [28:51]
Marcus
Okay. Every consumer concerned as well. 91% of consumers say that they're planning to shift their buying behavior due to inflation and trade costs. Quantity, iab. I guess everyone who's not a millionaire like me. Kidding, Marcus.
- [29:06]
Ethan Kramer
We don't all have that podcast money.
- [29:08]
Marcus
You know, those medium bucks get after them. That's all we have time for for this episode. Thank you so much to my guests for hanging out with me today. Thank you to Ethan.
- [29:14]
Ethan Kramer
Woohoo. Good to be back.
- [29:17]
Marcus
Good to have you back, sir. Thank you to Zach.
- [29:20]
Zach Goldman
Thanks Marcus.
- [29:21]
Marcus
Yes indeed. Thank you mainly to Victoria, my new favorite, John, who recently fell from number one. Ooh, still time though. Jon Larson. Danny joined third and Stu runs a team struggling to crack the top three. And Sophie, who does our social media. There's still time to make a late push. Thanks to everyone for listening in to behind the Numbers We Marketer video podcast made possible by Giphy. We'll be back Monday speaking about how all those other social platforms not called Meta are doing happiest of weekends.