NZ recovery ‘best in world’

SYDNEY, Today: NZ’s advertising market has continued its recovery from the Covid pandemic by reporting a record level of July adspend after demand soared 32.5% year-on-year, at least in part due to Olympic-related spending.

It’s the fourth consecutive month in which NZ adspend has recorded double-digit growth, with the total of $ 90.2 million exceeding the previous record of $ 89.4 million set in July 2017.

Television’s broadcast of the Tokyo Olympics helped push TV ad revenues 26.4% higher, while the Digital media also delivered a result above the pre-COVID levels after July bookings jumped 34.7%.

Other media reporting exceptionally strong gains included Newspapers (+46.2%) and Outdoor (+62.5%).

SMI AU/NZ managing director Jane Ractliffe said there was no sign of the market losing confidence as a result of the recent Covid outbreaks, with SMI already reporting a 12.5% increase in early August ad spend (ex Digital).

“It’s clear the advertising market has learned to live with Covid as there is definitely no panicked mass cancellation of adspend as we saw last year evident in the payment data,” Ractliffe said.

“New Zealand’s Covid recovery remains the strongest of any market in which SMI reports adspend.”

“And New Zealand’s Covid recovery remains the strongest of any market in which SMI reports adspend, and with the July totals exceeding the previous record it really highlights the ongoing strength of the market.”

Television’s July adspend was the highest recorded since July 2015 as the Tokyo Olympics delivered renewed demand for that media.

“The growth in New Zealand’s TV market in July was underpinned by a doubling of ad spend from banking advertisers, with strong growth also from the toiletries/cosmetics, government and communications categories.

“Calendar year-to-date results now show the NZ ad market has now grown by 31.1% on the same seven months last year with the total now 6% above the pre-Covid January to July 2019 period.

“`New Zealand’s ad market has delivered one of the best recoveries of any international market in which we report ad pend, having returned to pre-Covid levels more quickly than any other.

“But it’s clear that all markets are learning to live with Covid and are delivering strong recovery stories as large advertisers return their media investment to 2019 levels.”

About Standard Media Index
SMI 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 ad spend across all major media, media sectors, 41 product categories and 140 sub categories.

• www.standardmediaindex.com