Advertising spend in the UK is set to rise in 2013, despite there being very little on the shared agenda for the year ahead, thedrum.com reports.

In the UK alone, advertising spend in the UK was forecast to rise by 4.3 per cent during 2012, fuelled by large-scale events such as the Olympics and Diamond Jubilee. In addition, others taking place further afield, including the Euro 2012 tournament and US presidential elections also generated great volumes of social, online content and email marketing material.

Now, Warc has forecast that UK advertising spend will rise even further still in 2013, although the rate of growth will be slower at four per cent. This result sees the UK market ahead of its US counterpart, which could only muster a 2.5 per cent growth forecast. Conversely, Russia and China are leading the charge, drumming up estimations of respective 14.6 per cent and 12.5 per cent increases.

This increase in advertising budgets could prompt a more creative approach to marketing in 2013, some experts have claimed, with the shared agenda looking decidedly less busy than it did this time one year ago.

In light of this, forecasters have suggested that with the absence of large-scale political, sporting or cultural events on the horizon, marketers will need to be more creative with their messages to ensure the larger budgets are spent effectively. This has been surmised by “empty 13”, a summit aimed at promoting the year ahead and encouraging creative thought among marketers with higher budgets but fewer large-scale events to riff on.

Explaining what could lie ahead, a spokesperson for empty13.com said: “After a huge year of national events, there’s nothing on the agenda for 2013.

“But is this a bad thing? Or is this a chance for brands to be truly creative and write the story of the year themselves, starting with a blank sheet.”