In the advertising industry, South Korea's market, as the tenth leading country in this industry, has been valued at more than 70 times, and the U.S. market at more than 1,820 times, that of Iran.
The enormous figures belonging to the United States ($455.93 billion) and China ($251.91 billion) are a direct reflection of the scale of their consumer-driven economies. In countries such as the United States and China, companies allocate large budgets to advertising to capture a share of a very large and competitive consumer market. In fact, the volume of advertising is a reflection of the amount of money circulating in the entire economic system.
But the significant gap between Iran ($0.25 billion) and even countries with smaller economies on this list, such as South Korea ($17.66 billion), points to factors beyond the size of GDP.
A substantial share of advanced advertising markets is fed by multinational brands such as automakers or technology giants. These companies have global marketing budgets that are injected into local markets.
In addition, a large share of advertising revenue flows through the global digital advertising ecosystem (such as Google, Meta, and Amazon platforms). Existing constraints on connecting Iran's economy to these two main arteries (global brands and global platforms) naturally keep a lid on this industry's growth.
See the original infographic (Persian)
Machine-translated from Persian by Namafar; the Persian original is authoritative. Read the original in Persian