The advertising market, as defined by media agency bookings, fell 6.5% in January, according to Guideline SMI data.
The slow start to the year should improve when late digital bookings are added in.
However, total bookings for digital, the market’s largest medium with 48% of ad spend, are so far down 7.2%, although extra late programmatic bookings should improve that result.
Outdoor media returned to growth with ad spend up 1.3% on the back of billboards and retail outdoor sectors.
Cinema was the month’s strongest performer by percentage growth, up 37% compared to the same month last year.
Jane Ractliffe, Guideline SMI APAC managing director, said improving ad demand in New Zealand delivered a sign that the Australian market is on the cusp of returning to growth.
"Our NZ data has shown similar monthly declines as we’ve been experiencing in Australia this past year, but our latest January data shows NZ ad spend was steady in January with total bookings back only 0.2%," she said.
"And many of the categories that we’ve seen in decline in Australia (such as Food/Produce/Dairy) grew their NZ ad spend strongly this month so we’re expecting similar trends to emerge here."
Both markets are also seeing huge revenue gains in the streaming video market.
In Australia, it’s now the traditional TV networks leading the way, with double-digit growth in streaming revenues from the established players such as Nine, Foxtel and Southern Cross. The market is also being buoyed by newer entrants such as Amazon Prime.
"As a result streaming has been the fastest-growing Digital sector in our market for a year," she said.
Streamers were also large investors in media themselves in January, growing advertising budgets by 25% which in turn pushed total In Home Entertainment category ad spend up 20.9%.
But the largest dollar increase in product category ad spend this month came from the largest category of Retail where a $3.2 million increase in ad spend was mostly due to higher spending by supermarkets and online retailers.
On the negative side, travel ad spend fell 22.8% and government advertising was down 9.5%.
For the financial year-to-date, total Australian ad spend is back 4.8% from the same period last year, with Outdoor (+0.7%), Cinema (+2.3%) and Digital (-1.2%) the best performers.
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