NZ market delivers record adspend

SYDNEY, Wednesday: NZ’s media agency market has emerged strongly from the bruising Covid pandemic in a far stronger state, according to AU-based global number-cruncher SMI.

SMI AU/NZ managing director Jane Ractliffe said: “Advertising revenues soared 19.1% in CY2021 to move well out of the Covid doldrums and back beyond the $ NZ 1 billion mark – setting a new record level for NZ adspend.

“Total bookings hit $ 1,090,860,177 in CY2021, which was $ 85,302 above the last record year for adspend set in CY2017.

“The result was fuelled by strong growth in Government category adspend across the year as the pandemic continued, with that category’s total investment jumping 24% to emerge as the largest with adspend of $ 128.1 million.

“The market result was an exceptional result, especially given the ongoing Covid restrictions.

“Given advertising expenditure is so strongly correlated to GDP, this SMI data provides a very strong indication that the broader NZ economy is moving well beyond the original downturn and has instead learned to function extremely effectively in the new Covid era.

“Both the digital and radio media have delivered record levels of adspend for both the CY2021 and December month periods, and over the course of the year 15 of the 20 largest product categories have spent more on advertising than in the pre-Covid 2019 period.

“The year was also notable for consistent growth in agency bookings.”

“The fact that so many large categories are spending more on advertising now than before the pandemic started really does underscore the fact that the level of confidence in today’s market is at unprecedented levels.

The year was also notable for consistent growth in agency bookings, with the growth rate the highest in the first half of the year (+30.9%), given the prior period was the first and most challenging wave of Covid declines in adspend.

“But the positive momentum continued, with adspend lifting 10.5% in the December half to a record level; lifting 2.9% to a record December quarter and up 3% in the December month to another record level of $ 95 million.

Among the major media, TV bookings fell 13.7% but the digital media made huge gains with a 15.6% increase in bookings and radio adspend grew 13.8%.

“New Zealand’s strong advertising market looks set to continue unimpeded in January, with SMI’s NZ Forward Pacings data already showing the market to be up 3% on the same month a year ago even without the inclusion of any digital adspend detail.”

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 adspend across all major media, media sectors, 41 product categories and more than 145 sub categories. SMI works with media agencies in 15 global markets.

• www.standardmediaindex.com