The U.S. and China accounted for 86 percent of 2018 spending with the U.S. contributing $15.9 billion and China $14.4 billion. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Make no mistake about it: health care is a for-profit industry. And like any for-profit business, health care companies are banking on advertising to earn consumers' dollars. Globally, companies spent $36 billion on health care advertising in 2018.

According to Zenith Media's Healthcare Advertising Expenditure Forecasts, advertising overall is expected to log a growth rate of 4.8 percent in 2019 and 4.3 percent in 2020 across 13 key global markets. Health care advertising globally isn't hitting the same breakneck pace, though. Health care brands are expected to boost spending by 3.6 percent this year and match that pace in 2020. Research costs and the current battle over the cost of health care are depressing advertising spending by health care firms. But new technology, new OTC products and new services, as well as an aging population needing more care, are expected to fuel increased spending in the years to come.

Related: Hospitals turn to advertising to compete for wealthy patients

The U.S. and China accounted for 86 percent of 2018 spending with the U.S. contributing $15.9 billion and China $14.4 billion to health care ad spending. Health care advertising spending in all other markets combined totaled less than $1 billion. Other countries can't spend as liberally as the U.S. and China, with regulations reining in what they can and can't do and which products they're allowed to promote.

Between 2013 and 2018, ad spending on health care in the U.S. grew at an average rate of 6 percent a year. But thanks to the spotlight focused on prescription care costs, as well as industry consolidations and the expenses of bringing new prescription drugs to market, the report predicts "only a mild slowdown in U.S. health care ad-spend, with 6 percent growth in 2019 followed by 5 percent growth in 2020 and 2021, as strong expansion in internet advertising compensates for a slow erosion in television."

Spending on TV ads accounts for the largest chunk of the U.S. health care ad budget, at 54.7 percent in 2018. But that's shifting to out-of-home and online, says the report, and surprisingly enough, newspapers. That last is due to a heavy ad presence in India, which the report says is the fastest-growing market, growing at an average of 26 percent a year between 2018 and 2021. Not counting India's contribution, newsprint's share is "actually expected to drop from 2.1 percent in 2018 to just 1.6 percent in 2021."

The growth of telemedicine, AI and e-commerce are all expected to contribute to future ad growth, as populations focused on improving or maintaining their health age and need or want more products.

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