Marketers across most categories are spending less on advertising this year than they did a year ago, which places Australia at odds with spend patterns in the US and Canada, according to Guideline SMI figures.
Cinema and out of home are the only media channels that did not contract in March as ad spend continues to lag behind 2023 figures.
The market reported a 6.6 per cent decline for March, according to the latest Guideline SMI figures, which tracks the ad spend managed by media agencies.
Guideline SMI APAC Managing Director Jane Ractliffe said the result for the Australian ad market continues to differ significantly from that elsewhere, with both the US and Canadian markets reporting their third consecutive month of growth in March.
“As only the Government and Auto Brand categories lifted their Australian media investment by more than $5 million in March, it seems as though most marketers are adopting a more cautious approach to their ad budgets in the first half of this year,’’ she said.
“March demand was at least in part impacted by the timing of Easter (last year the holiday was entirely in April), but even so we saw only 35 per cent of categories grow investment and at least some would also be waiting to see how the market evolves after the July Olympics.’’
Cinema’s ad spend grew by 46 per cent and out of home increased by 0.5 per cent. Total video ad spend was down 13.5 per cent, audio dropped 7.9 per cent and newspapers dropped 22 per cent year on year.
Australia’s ad spend caution is not the case in other markets Guideline SMI tracks.
The US reported a 4.5 per cent increase in March, the UK was up 2.8 per cent, China grew ad spend by 3.7 per cent and Canada grew 2 per cent.
