The world’s 100 biggest advertisers increased spending on advertising and marketing services by 4.9% to a record $365 billion in 2023, according to Ad Age’s 38th annual global report on marketers.
Datacenter
World’s Largest Advertisers 2024—spending reached a record high, with gains in most categories
Consumer packaged goods marketers boosted their budgets while tech, entertainment and media firms pulled back
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More than two-thirds of the top 100 advertisers increased ad spending in 2023.
Credit:
Ad Age composite
Among the top 100 global advertisers, 68 increased spending in 2023.
Exclusive content for Ad Age All Access subscribers: The world’s 100 biggest advertisers, ranked—downloadable in Excel
Top 10 advertisers
Amazon and Beiersdorf's Nivea ran this campaign in Saudi Arabia in 2024. Amazon ranked as the world's biggest advertiser for the third consecutive year.
Credit:
Amazon
The new ranking’s top 10 (based on 2023 spending) includes the same 10 advertisers as the year-ago ranking (based on 2022 spending), but the order shifted a bit.
Ad Age ranked Amazon as the world’s biggest advertiser for the third year in a row. The retailing powerhouse spent $20.3 billion on advertising and promotion in 2023, down 1.5%.
L’Oréal, the French cosmetics and personal care products marketer, remained in second place in the ranking.
E-commerce venture PDD Holdings made the biggest move, vaulting to No. 6 from No. 10 as its worldwide spending on advertising and incentive programs soared 45.3% to $10.8 billion. PDD is a multinational e-commerce firm that operates the Pinduoduo and Temu shopping platforms.
Among the rest of the top 10 advertisers, Procter & Gamble Co., LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton and Unilever each rose one spot.
Alibaba Group Holding, Samsung Electronics Co., Alphabet (parent of Google) and Comcast Corp. each moved down within the top 10.
Exclusive content for Ad Age All Access subscribers: Table of the top 25 advertisers with links to company profiles
5 key stats
Ad Age World’s Largest Advertisers
+4.9%
Top 100’s 2023 global ad spending increased 4.9% and totaled $365 billion
Amazon
$20.3 billion
World’s biggest advertiser; ad and promotion spending decreased 1.5% in 2023
Ad Age World’s Largest Advertisers
68
Number of top 100 that increased ad spending in 2023
PDD Holdings (Pinduoduo, Temu)
+45%
Highest 2023 global spending growth among top 100, with ad and incentive program spending of $10.8 billion in 2023
Warner Bros. Discovery
-28%
Sharpest 2023 spending drop among top 100
Source: Ad Age Datacenter.
What’s up (and down) with internet ventures
Amazon, PDD, Alibaba and Alphabet are among 18 internet-centric companies in the top 100 ranking. The internet firms collectively increased 2023 global ad spending 6.0%. Spending for the remaining 82 companies in the ranking rose 4.5%.
Ten of those internet ventures increased spending in 2023, led by PDD, Flutter Entertainment and Baidu. Flutter is a sports betting and gaming company that operates FanDuel. Baidu is a Chinese internet firm.
Recruit Holdings Co., parent of job sites Indeed and Glassdoor, reduced ad and promotion spending by 21.3% in the fiscal year ended March 2024.
Credit:
Indeed
Seven of the internet ventures reduced spending, with double-digit decreases at two companies. Meta Platforms, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, slashed ad spending by 23.8%. Recruit Holdings Co., the Japanese parent of job sites Indeed and Glassdoor, cut ad and promotion spending by 21.3%.
Ad spending at ride-sharing firm Uber Technologies was unchanged in 2023 vs. 2022.
Internet firms have adjusted their ad budgets as they grapple with various issues including slowing revenue growth in maturing markets and challenges involving business disruption from artificial intelligence.
Ten of the ranking’s 18 internet ventures are based in the U.S. Overall ad spending in 2023 for those U.S. firms was down slightly (-0.5%). That followed a 20.0% spending surge in 2022 for U.S. internet firms in Ad Age’s year-ago global ranking.
Overall spending for the ranking’s four China-based internet ventures—Alibaba, Baidu, JD.com and Tencent Holdings—jumped 9.7% in 2023, rebounding after the four firms cut spending by 23.1% in 2022. This Chinese contingent excludes big-spending PDD, which lists Dublin as its principal executive offices even though substantially all of its revenue is derived from China.
Exclusive content for Ad Age All Access subscribers: Global marketers with the biggest ad spending increases and decreases in 2023
Ad growth by category and region
Lady Gaga appeared in a 2024 commercial for Pfizer’s Nurtec ODT, a migraine medication. Pharma showed strong spending growth for the Ad Age World’s Largest Advertisers.
Credit:
Pfizer
Ad Age Datacenter assigned each of the top 100 advertisers to a category based on the marketer’s primary advertised products or services. On that basis, aggregate worldwide ad spending for the World’s Largest Advertisers rose in 11 of Ad Age’s 14 categories in 2023.
Four categories scored double-digit spending increases, propelled by strong growth in consumer packaged goods (food and beverages, up 13.4%; household products, up 10.6%; personal care, up 10.4%) and pharmaceuticals (up 12.4%).
Spending declined in three categories: technology (down 5.3%), entertainment and media (down 4.1%) and financial services (a slight drop of 0.3%).
Among the world’s top 100 advertisers, 51 North America-based marketers (50 in the U.S. and Restaurant Brands International in Canada) increased ad spending by 2.5% in 2023.
The ranking includes 30 Europe-based marketers that boosted spending by 10.9%.
Spending for 19 Asia-based marketers edged up 1.1%.
Exclusive content for Ad Age All Access subscribers: Top 100 by category, region and country
Top 100 by country
The Ad Age World’s Largest Advertisers ranking includes a roster of marketers from Amazon to No. 100 Airbnb.
The ranking includes 50 U.S.-based firms that accounted for nearly half (49%) of the top 100’s worldwide ad spending.
Ten of the 100 marketers are based in Germany, nine in Japan, seven in France and six each in China and the U.K.
Four of the Ad Age World’s Largest Advertisers had no significant U.S. measured media spending in 2023: China’s Baidu, JD.com and dairy marketer Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co.; and German retailer Rewe Group.
The Ad Age World’s Largest Advertisers ranking complements the Ad Age Leading National Advertisers ranking of top U.S. spenders; 87 of the 200 biggest spenders in the U.S. (and 67 of the 100 biggest spenders in the U.S.) made the ranking of the world’s top 100 spenders.
Links to Ad Age’s advertiser rankings
Latest rankings: worldwide
The Ad Age World’s Largest Advertisers 2024 ranking was published Dec. 9, 2024.
Past rankings: worldwide
Ad Age World’s Largest Advertisers 2023
Ad Age World’s Largest Advertisers 2022
Latest rankings: U.S.
The Ad Age Leading National Advertisers 2024 ranking was published Oct. 28, 2024.
Past rankings: U.S.
Ad Age Leading National Advertisers 2023
Ad Age Leading National Advertisers 2022
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