The Australian ad market had a tough 2024, according to new figures released by Guideline SMI.
The overall market declined 0.9 per cent across the calendar year, compared to 2023. In December ’24, the market was back 7.2 per cent compared to the previous December.
That decline in spend was despite an 18.2 per cent lift in government spend across the year and a 67.5 per cent lift in December, both year-on-year.
There were a number of bright spots in the figures. Ad demand to video streaming services climbed 17.8 per cent in the calendar year year-on-year. Digital radio demand also climbed 17.4 per cent.
Overall radio demand dropped 3.4 per cent across the calendar year but climbed 0.8 per cent in December, compared to the previous year.
“The growth in ad spend to Video/Streaming Sites also delivered another consequential metric as our Digital data shows Video-based campaigns overtook Display as the largest ad format for the first time in CY2024, with the value of video-based campaigns growing 12.4 per cent while the Display total fell 3.4 per cent on CY2023,” said Guideline SMI APAC director Jane Ractliffe.
“Retailers–and in particular Chemists–drove a lot of the growth in Video-based ad spend across all Digital sectors, along with Food/Produce/Dairy and Toiletries/Cosmetics advertisers. Within the latter, video growth from the Skin Care subcategory delivered most of the gains within the Toiletries
market.”
Across other media, Digital grew 4.4 per cent in CY2024 with Social Media (up 9.4 per cent) emerging as the next strongest sector after Video Sites; Linear TV ad spend fell 9.5 per cent although Regional TV was back a lesser 3.2 per cent. Regional radio also performed better than cap city radio, with spend falling 0.3 per cent YOY.
“Outdoor’s growth of 4.9 per cent this year has seen it hit a record ad market share of 15.4 per cent and with our new visibility on Outdoor sector trends across all 150+ SMI product subcategories we can now see that large brand campaigns are driving demand in the largest Outdoor sector of Posters, with Bank Brand/Sponsorship bookings up 18.4 per cent this year and Insurance Brand/Sponsorship campaigns up 41.4 per cent,” Ractliffe added.
For the first six months of the financial year the market is back 1.9 per cent but with Digital up 2.8 per cent, Outdoor up 2.3 per cent and Cinema again delivering the strongest growth, up 10.3 per cent.
The market has had a tough couple of years following a bumper 2021 calendar year, largely thanks to government spending around elections and COVID.
After the overall market climbed 20.7 per cent from 2020 into 2021, and a further 6.7 per cent in 2022 compared to 2021, it dropped 2.3 per cent in 2023 and has now dropped another 0.9 per cent.
