Australia’s advertising market continues its remarkable recovery from the Covid pandemic, reports SMI.
The ad spend monitoring business is reporting the fourth consecutive month of growth beyond 40% in July.
Total market bookings grew 41.8% from July 2020, partly buoyed by the Tokyo Olympics which aided a 41.9% increase in TV ad spend (TV’s highest July result since 2016) and a doubling of ad spend to the digital video sites market.
SMI AU/NZ managing director Jane Ractliffe said there was no sign of the market losing confidence as a result of the recent COVID outbreaks, with SMI already reporting a 15% increase in early August ad spend (ex-digital).
“It’s clear the advertising market has learned to live with Covid as there is definitely no panicked mass cancellation of ad spend as we saw last year evident in the payment data,” Ractliffe said.
“We can already see in the early August data that TV, outdoor, radio and cinema are reporting strong growth, while September SMI’s Forward Pacings show the market is already 82% booked compared to the total spent in September last year. That’s the highest level of future confirmed payments seen at this point in the past two years.”
Ractliffe noted a geographic analysis of SMI’s ad spend data further proved the point, with ad spend onto media based in NSW and Victoria delivering the highest level of growth of any state-based media with growth of 52% and 46.3% respectively.
SMI’s July data has also confirmed the extent of the Covid recovery, with the total market spend 7.4% above that achieved in July 2019 and only $2 million shy of the record level of July ad spend reported in 2016.
“The Australian market is reporting similar trends to what we’re seeing elsewhere which proves the current market strength is not isolated, with the US market also back at pre-pandemic levels in July and the New Zealand media reporting a record level of ad spend for the month,” Ractliffe said.
SMI forward pacings: Confirmed ad spend for August, Sept already above last two years
SMI is now giving advertisers an opportunity to trial the brand-level ad spend estimates SMI creates with the creative ad monitoring group Big Datr. The estimates are derived using SMI’s premium category detail for all media to ensure a new level of accuracy, especially for digital media sectors such as social and display. The advertiser ad spend detail is also not based on rate cards, but on actual bookings.
“Advertisers are always keen for more accurate competitive data – especially for digital media – and SMI and Big Datr are now solving this problem by combining SMI’s accurate category detail with Big Datr’s monitoring solutions. SMI has always championed greater data accuracy, and now we’re also delivering this at another level for advertisers,” Ractliffe said.
See also: SMI June ad spend data signals end to biggest first half on record