Ad revenues are expected to grow at a robust pace in 2007 and 2008, and not just in the United States.

GroupM released its new global ad forecast, entitled simply “This Year, Next Year,” which projects global ad revenue will rise 6 percent to $433 billion in 2007 and 7 percent to $462 billion in 2008.

Among the countries surveyed in the report, growth in the U.S. is expected to be near the bottom of the pack. GroupM forecasts U.S. ad spending will rise 2.8 percent in 2007 and 3.5 percent in 2008.

Part of that 2008 growth will come from the U.S. presidential election. According to the report, the election is expected to generate a record $1 billion in ad spending.

The Olympics is expected to add another $1 billion in ad spending, although the high prices it generates actually deter some price-conscious advertisers, the report says.

The big driver for global growth is the Asia-Pacific region, which is kicking in a growth rate of 8 percent in 2007 and 11 percent in 2008.

Also growing quickly is what GroupM refers to as “Emerging Europe.” Those newly capitalist economies are showing media growth of 19 percent in 2007—on a small base—and 17 percent in 2008.

“We should count this boring, benign, short-run outlook a blessing. The debt bubble neither inflated nor deflated marketing investment,” the report said. “Nor did the long run of corporate double-digit profit growth (which seems to be coming to an end), despite the old wisdom that good profits meant more marketing.”

According to the report, television is providing about half the world’s ad revenue growth, with 47 percent of additional spending going to TV in 2007 and 52 percent in 2008.

Worldwide, the Internet’s contribution to growth is slowing. GroupM pegs the Web’s share of new dollars at 32 percent in 2007 and 30 percent in 2008.

GroupM notes that in developed media markets, the Internet still is supplying the majority of new advertising revenue. But the agency is looking for signs of saturation and says daily usage and broadband installation are close to plateaus in some developed market.

In its report, Group M notes the difficulty in measuring Internet spending.

“We include all the Internet revenue we can in this report, but not everything is measured,” the report said.

“Most industry sources monitor Internet display (pop-ups, banners, etc.) but not necessarily search of classified. Even less is known about e-mail revenues and content production costs.”

The report said mobile and Internet-protocol TV are “even further off the radar. Our own clients’ Internet-related investment is growing about 50 percent in 2007. Yet in this report we forecast worldwide measured Internet growth of ‘only’ 23 percent.”

GroupM fashions this report from intelligence gathered by its local offices. It says its U.S., Japan, Taiwan and Mexico operations all reported nontraditional marketing is siphoning funds from traditional media.

“These are in the main ‘invisibles’ and take many forms,” the report said. In the U.S., there’s user-generated content on the Web and branded content in media. Taiwan points to product placement in entertainment and TV news sponsorships. Mexico lists public relations and promotions as replacements for paid media.

“These are anecdotal, fringe investments, which certainly account for less than 1 percent of marketing investment,” the report said. “But for the individual advertiser, such investment can be very substantial, which we illustrate with another anecdote: A large TV advertiser we work for recently invested 20 percent of its annual TV spot budget to make a TV program.”

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