SMI Data: Ad Spends Flat In January But It’s Good News For OOH & Radio

Media land looks set to deliver a stable start to 2017 with total agency bookings for January 2017 so far back 6.2 per cent at $417.7 million, but the market should deliver a flat result once late digital bookings arrive at month end, according to the latest SMI data.

The result is especially strong given last January’s figures were a record January result and given that two of the market’s largest categories – automotive brand and auto services – reduced bookings by seven per cent and 24 per cent respectively in the latest year-on-year period.

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Despite that, already the OOH and radio media are reporting higher spend (up 10.9 per cent and 1.1 per cent) and the regional TV market has delivered its fourth consecutive month of growth (this time up 3.4 per cent from January 2016).

Also on the positive side, the strongest performing product categories for the month are movies/cinema/theme Parks (ad spend growth of 31 per cent YOY), the retail sector ( up 10 per cent) and then technology (up 28 per cent).

And for a longer term perspective, the full agency market is now flat with bookings down only $1.9 million to $4.15 billion.

SMI AU/NZ MD Jane Schulze said Retail advertisers have been delivering consistently higher media investment over the past three months, and as a result this category has now overtaken auto Brand as the market’s largest for this period.

“The Retail category (supermarkets, department stores, discount stores, chemists and office/hardware stores) has grown bookings 17 per cent in the three months to the end of January to $193.3 million while at the same time the auto brand category has reduced bookings 7.3 per cent to $156.5 million,’’ she said.

“All of the major media have benefited from retail’s growth, but the largest beneficiaries have been TV (Retail spend +15.9 per cent) and digital (up 27.8 per cent). And SMI’s digital sub category data shows most of the growth comes from supermarkets.’’

Also this month, SMI has unveiled new digital sub categories for the automotive brand and pharmaceutical categories. Auto brand now splits into micro/small cars, medium/large cars, SUVs light commercial, heavy commercial and auto brand/sponsorship. And pharmaceuticals split into analgesics, skin/respiratory, supplements/vitamins, other pharma products and pharma brand/sponsorship. Ad spend for each of these is available for all digital sectors, ad formats and website genres.

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Advertising Standards Bureau Jane Schulze SMI Data