jeremy allen white is the name on the headline, but the real number is £1.3bn: analysts have cut their forecast for UK digital advertising spend in 2027 after the ban on social media for under-16s. Brands are expected to pull more than £1bn from digital budgets as the rule takes effect early next year.
Helenor Gilmour, head of the DC Thomson-owned kids and family research agency Beano Brain, said teenagers and younger children will still encounter some social media through “parallel me time” with their parents. She also said, “There is certainly going to be a period of readjustment.”
Beano Brain and product discovery
Last month, Beano Brain found that among seven- to 14-year-olds, a third said YouTube ads and YouTubers were how they found out about new things they wanted to buy. A quarter cited TikTok videos, while 22% said TV ads influenced their buying decisions. Those figures show why the ad market is being forced to chase children’s attention across formats rather than simply lose it.
Gilmour said, “Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ have ad tiers now, and kids are all over those platforms.” She added, “We will see a big shift [in ad spend] moving in that direction, they will be big winners and soak up quite a bit of the YouTube revenue.”
Streaming tiers and TV
The forecast cut to £17bn in UK digital ad spend for 2027 came after eMarketer assessed the likely impact of the ban. The same market is already adapting to a broader squeeze on food advertising around children, with Ofcom’s TV junk food ad ban dating to 2006 and the advertising watchdog tightening paid online junk food rules earlier this year.
James Kirkham said, “The notion that advertising money is going to evaporate is mad, the ban won’t mean shrinking budgets, it is going to go somewhere.” He also asked clients, “Does it survive the scroll?”
WPP and regulated budgets
Joseph Petyan, chief executive of WPP-owned agency VML, said, “[Large] advertisers and the industry won’t be scared by the ban,” and added, “We operate in a very regulated environment already, which is the right thing to do if you want to build a trusted brand.”
That leaves the practical answer for advertisers: budget will not disappear, but the easiest routes into under-16 attention are narrowing. Streaming services with ad tiers already reach 27 million UK viewers, and family television should pick up part of the shift as brands look for places where children still watch with adults.
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