SMI Data: Aussie Ad Spends Dip 1.5% Year On Year For Month Of March

Australia’s ad market continues to feel the impact of last year’s record-breaking period, with SMI’s results for March showing an underlying dip in advertising revenue of 1.5 per cent once the abnormal level of Government category ad spend is removed. With the Government ad spend included the top-line figures show a year-on-year decline of 5.5 per cent.

The Government category continues to wildly impact the SMI ad spend figures given the huge increases in ad spend last year due to COVID and pre-Federal election advertising expenditure ahead of the May poll.

As a result the category’s ad spend reduced by 52.7 per cent in March (taking $31 million from the market) and for the March quarter the category’s decline is 47.5 per cent (removing $73.5 million from the market).

SMI AU/NZ managing director Jane Ractliffe said all media have been badly affected by the trend, with Government ad spend to the Digital media falling 31 per cent in March while for TV the decline is 54.7 per cent; the Outdoor decline is 65 per cent but most affected is Radio where the fall in this category’s ad spend is a huge 70.3 per cent.

“When we remove the impact of Government ad spend we can see Digital revenues are back just 4.7 per cent; TV bookings are back 9.4 per cent (and if you include BVOD that declines further to -7.4 per cent) and for Radio the 14 per cent decline falls to -3.5 per cent ex Government and then -2.7 per cent with Digital Audio included,’’ she said.

“It’s likely we’ve never before seen a single category have such a profound impact on the market, either positively or negatively, but COVID was a one-off global event and we are clearly still experiencing its effect in the ad market.’’

Despite the lower Government bookings, Outdoor delivered the best result among all media in March with total bookings lifting a healthy 18.5 per cent (and by 31.2 per cent with Government removed).

And on the positive side, while Government ad spend retreated SMI is seeing very strong growth from our traditionally largest product categories with Retail ad spend up 18.2 per cent, Automotive Brand bookings up 11.7 per cent and Travel ad spend growing 32.9 per cent.

“The underlying strength of the market is evident in the fact that even with Government ad spend included the value of ad spend from the ten largest categories has grown 0.1 per cent in March, highlighting the fact that the lower ad demand is mostly coming from the smaller product categories,’’ Ractliffe said.

And SMI’s March quarter data was also impacted by the decline in Government spend which had pushed the prior year period to a record high.

As a result this quarter demand was down 5.1 per cent but again, with Government category spend excluded, that decline is a much lesser 1.6 per cent.

Ractliffe said the Retail, Automotive Brand, Travel and Communications product categories have all shown strong demand over the last three months with their combined spend up 13%, led by Travel with an increase of 34%.

Outdoor spend increased by 13.7 per cent in the quarter and Cinema lifted 16.9 per cent while printed Magazines were up 9.9 per cent. Digital was flat with a 0.5 per cent decline, however, within Digital, BVOD spend was up 15.4 per cent and online Magazines showed a very strong 47.2 per cent gain.

And despite the huge impact of Government spending, over the nine months of the financial year SMI continues to report a record level of ad spend with the total up by 1.1 per cent (or $72.8 million) over the same nine months last year.

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SMI Data