In this latest edition of From The Bureau, Interactive Advertising Bureau CEO Gai Le Roy writes that with the changing advertising and media landscape, everyone needs to reassess the way we analyse and study the market. There may be more gaps in our knowledge than we realise.
There is no doubt that it has been a tough year or two for advertising investment in Australia, but as we head towards the year-end, I am becoming concerned about the way many companies and commentators are approaching their market and competitive analysis.
Shifts in buying methods and decision-makers, the availability of new investment options and the continued blurring of lines of what is considered “advertising”, are causing a situation where traditional methods of tracking the market may be misleading.
The whole situation is giving me flashbacks to my time working publisher-side when they only measured share against our major traditional competitor, while new competitors were taking market share left, right and centre.
An increase in the number of brands in-housing a range of media options, an uplift in independent agency activity, and a jump in direct advertiser investment particularly in search and social (and especially by an increasingly large number of SMEs), means that if you are relying on larger agency activity as your read for the market, it won’t be enough.
At a minimum, it will mean you are underestimating the size of the market. It will also mean you are missing trends that are stronger outside the holding company agency ecosystem and that may not have previously been part of a marketer’s advertising expenditure line. These could include the move of trade retail and shopper marketing dollars into retail media budgets. Or affiliate marketing more frequently sitting alongside other advertising channels. And the growing sophistication of influencer marketing investment.
The reality is that it’s increasingly difficult to secure detailed Australian market information about the ever-increasing range of advertising investment options, as well as the local and global players who want you to spend with them.
Even our quarterly IAB Australia Internet Advertising Revenue Report, which includes ad revenue for the publishers, broadcasters and platforms (totalling $15.6 billion dollars in FY24) across a range of sectors, still misses a range of investments. That’s because we do not have data that is robust enough for inclusion, across a range of sectors including retail media (outside of Amazon), programmatic DOOH, influencer advertising and affiliate marketing.
We’re working hard to identify and measure these extra pockets of investment because even though for some local publishers and broadcasters, having a more complete understanding may make their market share look worse, it is vital executives understand the complete market.
All of this is to say if you are a marketer, agency or media owner, don’t sell yourself short. Make full use of a wider range of investment data sources to build out your advertising strategy. Doing so will ensure you have the best chance of picking up on the latest trends, identifying the best partnership opportunities and making the right calls for product investment, as well as market positioning.
And if you are an analyst, commentator or journalist, I’d encourage you to reflect before publishing information on the increase or decrease in the ad market investment to truly understand all the other factors at play.
