Australian ad demand continues to show signs of improvement with Guideline SMI’s media agency data for the month of January showing media agency advertising spend so far back 5 per cent on the same time last year.
However, there’s signs the market remains cautious as we’re still expecting further late Digital bookings for January given that both Search and Programmatic revenues so far remain lower year-on-year (YOY) in January.
But Guideline SMI APAC managing director Jane Ractliffe said although total digital bookings are still back 5 per cent in January those aligned to the content of most traditional media had shown growth.
“It’s clear that there’s continued growing demand for digital quality media aligned with traditional media content as we can see ongoing growth in the streaming services of the linear TV stations and also the audio services of the linear radio stations,’’ she said. Ractliffe said with streaming bookings added, linear TV’s 5.2 per cent decline reduced to a fall of 3.9 per cent (and within that Metropolitan TV ad spend fell only 1.7 per cent YOY, which was its best result since last year’s Paris Olympics), while for radio its linear revenues were back 9.6 per cent, but with digital audio bookings added that transformed to -7.6 per cent.
“And this month the traditional magazine media has seen its related Digital bookings more than double due to huge growth in direct bookings to sites such as Taste.com.au and Vogue.com.au. And that’s transformed a 7.1 per cent decline in print magazine bookings into growth of 19 per cent once those related Digital bookings are included,’’ she said. But on a stand-alone basis the best performing media for January is outdoor as it’s delivering a 0.3 per cent increase in ad spend with strong growth in the posters/billboards and sporting venues sectors offset by lower retail outdoor ad spend.
Ractliffe said regional media again outperformed with regional radio back just 0.1 per cent and regional press bookings +4.6 per cent. But the key driver of this result was the ongoing surge in the government category spend in the lead-up to the federal election, with the total +43.6 per cent in January, with all major media scoring increases in spend although linear TV received the largest benefit (+91.1 per cent) followed by Radio (+59.7 per cent).
“We can already see strong growth in both government and political party ad spend in our forward bookings data, with the government category’s spend on digital media already in positive territory in February and that’s highly unusual given the way digital media is booked and paid,’’ Ractliffe said.
“It’s definitely a strong indicator of demand as Digital media inventory is infinite so this shows the various Government departments are more keen than usual to secure prime Digital placements directly with the Digital publishers in advance in this likely election period.’’
Meantime, Ractliffe also noted that Australia’s New Zealand counterparts are reporting a stronger start to the advertising year than our local experience with January ad demand in New Zealand up 8% year-on-year, representing the third consecutive month of advertising growth in the NZ market.
“The New Zealand ad market is coming out of a prolonged malaise and is now delivering very significant increases in ad spend,’’ Ractliffe said. “In January alone we are reporting NZ outdoor growth of 32.6 per cent, radio growth of 26.2 per cent, subscription TV growth of 45.9 per cent and a doubling of magazine bookings. It’s clear the New Zealand economy and consumer confidence is rebounding and that’s now being reflected in strongly growing ad demand.’’
Guideline SMI AU: January 2025 Ad Spend Trends
| Media Type | Variance |
| Digital | -5.1% |
| Television | -5.2% |
| Outdoor | 0.3% |
| Radio | -9.6% |
| Newspaper | -2.4% |
| Cinema | -24.9% |
| Other | -34.8% |
| Magazines | -7.1% |
| Total | -5.0% |
