The advertising market in Australia, as measured by media agency bookings, staged a rally in May, with spend down just -0.5%.
And this is likely to turn positive when late digital bookings are added to Guideline SMI data numbers.
The this result is the first this year to provide a clear view of underlying ad demand given previous months were impacted by the Winter Olympics and the abnormal spike in ad spend from last year’s Federal election.
“We’re seeing a return to more normal programming in May with each of the three largest product categories – retail, auto and government – all reporting sizable increases in media budgets,” said Guideline SMI APAC MD Jane Ractliffe.
“And other key categories like pharmaceuticals and non-alcoholic beverages also spending more,’’ she said.
“Given the lag in collecting ad spend for social, search and programmatic media we’ll see these gains further amplify in the next few weeks to deliver higher ad demand in May.’’
Outdoor is a key growth media with bookings up 14.3% in May.
Cinema was up 22.6% and newspaper’s print ad spend grew 1.4% due to double digit gains in regional press.
World Cup broadcaster SBS saw its ad spend for May almost doub e ahead of the event.
The decline for Metropolitan TV was -3.4%. Adding streaming ad spend included put total video bookings (ex programmatic) down just -0.9%.
The key driver of the stronger ad demand this month was a 60.8% jump in government spending pumping an extra $22.8 million into the market .
Those extra bookings benefited every major media with all experiencing a minimum gain in government ad spend of 35%.
An 11.3% increase in automotive brand ad spend was driven by higher bookings from the electric vehicles/hybrids subcategory.
Gambling brands prepared for the World Cup with bookings up 23.8%.
May data:
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