The advertising market in Mexico is booming, especially with the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2026. Total advertising spending reached 133 billion Mexican pesos in 2024, an 11% year-on-year increase, and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 11.6% until 2029.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the Mexican advertising ecosystem has been continuously and quietly automating. Programmatic advertising spending in the country reached $4.14 billion in 2023, and Statista projects that this figure will grow to $6.2 billion by 2028, representing 76% of all digital advertising revenues; and by 2030, this share is expected to increase to 82%. These are not distant forecasts; they describe a market where AI-driven platforms manage the majority of media transactions. The practical implications for agencies are significant: manual processes that previously justified large planning and buying teams are being absorbed by algorithms that operate continuously, at scale, and with greater accuracy than any human workflow.
However, behind these impressive numbers lies an increasingly deep structural divide. On one side are the global holding groups - WPP, Publicis, Omnicom, Dentsu, and Havas - armed with proprietary AI platforms, global data networks, and significant investment capacity. On the other side, a huge number of local and independent agencies (estimated at over 1,500) compete for the scraps of a market that is increasingly designed to favor scale. The question is not just whether local agencies can keep up, but whether the current competitive model is viable.
The traditional value proposition of agencies in Mexico was based on access and relationships: access to media inventory, relationships with broadcasters and publishers, and the expertise to navigate a fragmented market of regional television channels, print media, and digital platforms. AI is simultaneously dismantling each of these advantages. Generative AI tools now produce advertising texts, creative variations, and campaign reports in minutes. Programmatic platforms negotiate and place media without human intermediaries. And real-time analytics dashboards provide clients with direct visibility into performance, reducing their dependence on agency interpretation.
The scale gap is widening
Globally, global network media agencies are focusing on operational efficiency and delivering new technological solutions. Publicis Groupe alone allocated over $300 million for AI acquisitions in 2025, including commerce platforms and content creators. WPP restructured its entire media operation under WPP Media. And the historic $30 billion acquisition of Interpublic Group by Omnicom created the largest advertising entity in the world, with combined media billings exceeding $73 billion. Meanwhile, Dentsu has just officially canceled plans to sell its international business, opting to restructure, focus on integrating its global operations, and invest in AI capabilities, rather than pursuing a total sale or external collaboration, promoting growth independently after potential buyers, including private equity firms, withdrew from negotiations.
Undoubtedly, the media landscape is becoming increasingly complex and specialized, and in Mexico it offers opportunities in retail media, CTV, Digital OoH, and creator-driven campaigns. Emerging trends focus on resilience to privacy, first-party data strategies, and the diversification of local platforms. For example, dollars dedicated to retail media are growing solidly, concentrating nearly 1 in every 6 dollars of advertising investment by 2029. And Mexico is undoubtedly one of the countries with the greatest potential for development in this regard; furthermore, it is expected that the programmatic share of digital advertising in Mexico will reach 76% by 2028, and these groups are positioning themselves to control the infrastructure through which the majority of advertising investment will flow.