Ad spend fell in July by 4.2% compared to a strong month in 2021 which included the Tokyo Olympics, according to SMI (Standard Media Index) numbers.
Total July ad spend is back $27.9 million from last year’s record month total but when the media most affected by last year’s Olympic broadcast are excluded (metropolitan TV and their related Pure Play Video or Streaming Sites) the market shows growth of 2.8%.
Jane Ractliffe, SMI AU/NZ's managing director: "At least within the advertising market we’re not yet seeing any significant signs of nervousness in the current economic environment.
"And this is an especially solid result as for the first time in three years we’ve seen the first signs that government category ad spend – which has powered a lot of the market’s growth – is starting to normalise from the COVID era with the value of its bookings back 35% this month.
"But other categories have stepped up to fill the void and as a result we’re seeing good growth on an underlying basis.’’
July has been a strong month for the outdoor media. Its growth rate of 28.8% was the highest for any media and ensured the media delivered total ad spend 2.5% higher than its pre-pandemic result of July 2019.
Total digital ad spend grew just 0.1%, mostly affected by the lower Video Sites/Streaming ad spend. But it’s also clear that the value of video-based campaigns across the market continues to grow with the Video total now just $2 million below that of the online Display ad market in July.
Product category trends are also moving quickly, with the government category delivering the largest decline of any category this month and that affected all major media.
However, that fall was almost offset by soaring Travel category bookings with that category’s total more than doubling year-on-year.
And for the January to July period the market remains well in record ad spend territory with the value of the ad market up 8.6% on the same period last year.
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