Part two of the IMAA Indie Census for June 2023 has revealed Australia’s independent media agencies anticipate that BVOD/CTV, digital video, and podcasts will record the greatest growth in advertiser spending in this financial year.
As more than 90% of indie agencies now buy or plan to buy traditional media through digital pipes, the media channels expected to be the main beneficiaries are BVOD/CTV, with 92% predicting growth of up to 25% or more, followed by digital video (79%), programmatic out-of-home (78%), podcasts (75%), digital – social (64%), digital – search (64%), digital radio (57%), and out-of-home (57%).
The majority of agencies predicted linear television, linear radio, and cinema to be flat year-on-year, with more than 40% predicting print would decline by 25% or less.
The IMAA Indie Census surveyed the Independent Media Agencies of Australia’s 160+ members to look at the financial year ahead across a range of areas.
Following the launch of VOZ this year, more than 60% of agencies said it would “moderately” influence their planning approach to client spend on screens, with almost 60% anticipating that between 10% to 30% of client screens budgets would go to BVOD/CTV and almost half saying it would have increased importance and investment in FY24.
FAST (free, ad supported TV) channels are also increasing in importance with almost 70% of agencies nominating them as ‘very/somewhat’ important.
Agencies were also asked to rank the most important attributes when selecting an advertising medium, with ‘the ability to reach people at the right time’ ranked no.1, followed by ‘influential talent’, ‘a medium people enjoy consuming’, ‘content that triggers an emotional response’ and ‘talent who are inspirational’.
TikTok, out-of-home and BVOD were nominated as the three platforms media agencies were most looking forward to utilising in the next 12 months.
Among other findings, location-based targeting was seen as ‘extremely/very’ important by almost 70% of agencies, with nearly seven in 10 agencies allocating up to 15% of client budgets to test and learn strategies.
Using attention-based data for media planning and buying decisions was ‘highly/most likely’ to be used this year by 56% of agencies.
Sam Buchanan
Sustainability credentials of media owners were also growing in importance with more than half (55%) saying that they expect it to influence their buying decisions soon.
Sam Buchanan, IMAA CEO, said: “Our Indie Census provides in-depth insights into where and how indie media agencies are planning to invest in the year ahead, as well as key areas of importance to agencies and their clients.
“As the number of indie agencies offering full service grows rapidly and more and more buying is occurring through digital pipes, our members offer the unique ability with their planning and buying decisions to be agile and to meet changing client needs and help deliver business success. This is particularly important in an inflationary environment where every dollar counts.”