NZ ad market returns to pre-Covid levels

AUCKLAND, Today: New Zealand’s media agency market returned to its levels of pre-Covid adspend in May following a record 67.4% increase in year-on-year adspend, with the new total now 3.7% above the level seen in May 2019.

The result represented the market’s fourth consecutive month of growth and was mostly driven by exceptionally large increases in ad spend from the tourism, banking and toiletries product categories.

And SMI AU/NZ Managing Director Jane Ractliffe said that while the market delivered record growth in May SMI’s Forward Pacings data showed an even higher level of growth will be recorded in June with total spend for that month (ex digital) already up 70.7%.

“It’s really quite extraordinary; it highlights the level of confidence now in the market,” she said.

“The SMI data shows the May 2020 period was the worst month for adspend ever seen in NZ.”

“The total market growth rate reported for May is clearly unprecedented and within that figure we’re also seeing all major media reporting double digit growth in ad spend. And the TV, digital and outdoor media are all delivering adspend totals well above the 2019 totals.

“The SMI data shows the May 2020 period was the worst month for adspend ever seen in New Zealand with the market reporting a record year-on-year decline of 45.5%, but now the market has returned with an even stronger level of demand.

“We can already see that outdoor is leading the market’s recovery in June with total adspend up 141.5% year-on-year, followed by cinema which is already delivering an even more incredible 341.7% increase in year-on-year adspend – and that’s before the month has even concluded.

“Outdoor is leading the market’s recovery in June, followed by cinema.”

“And given the recent strong gains in adspend, SMI is now reporting NZ’s calendar year-to-date adspend to be up a healthy 23.5%, with the total also 4.7% above the January to May 2019 totals.

“Digital leads the CYTD gains (+37.5%) followed by outdoor (+26.5%) and then TV (+22.7%).

“And the financial year-to-date results also continue to strengthen with the total now showing growth of 4.1%.”

About Standard Media Index
Standard Media Index was established in 2009 in Sydney and has offices in New York, London and Madrid. SMI partners with leading global media buying agencies to provide independent, accurate and timely advertising expenditure data to its clients to facilitate informed analysis of the media sector and product category expenditure. Data is sourced directly from advertising agencies’ billing systems and then aggregated to show the combined picture of media agency adspend across all major media, media sectors, 41 product categories and more than 140 sub categories.

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