Ad market defies expectations for August with record high

Despite higher inflation and last year’s broadcast of the Tokyo Olympics, New Zealand’s ad market has reported an impressive 10.3 percent increase in media agency ad spend, hitting a record August total.

This result is even more extraordinary considering the fact the August 2021 ad revenues were only $ 1 million below the last record August figures reported in 2019.

SMI AU/NZ Managing Director Jane Ractliffe says there’s no sign the current economic challenges are impacting ad demand, with SMI’s early data for September showing the total ad spend already equal to last year’s September total (ex Digital).

“The New Zealand ad market is proving itself to be incredibly resilient given concerns about inflationary pressures and global uncertainties. This is an incredible result, especially as more than a week of abnormal Olympics-related ad revenues are included in last year’s total,” she says.

“And we can clearly see that ad demand will also be higher in September as the Forward Pacing revenues we collected last week are already of equal value to those booked for the whole of September 2021, and there were still five days of ad selling to go. And those Forwards also exclude all Digital ad spend which will further propel market growth.”

Despite the Tokyo Olympics usually creating an abnormal decline in TV spend in comparative periods, this month we’ve seen Television ad spend lift 7.6 percent to $ 35.3 million.

Digital media remained the fastest growing in New Zealand with the value of booking lifting 19.3 percent driven by strong growth in Social Media, Programmatic trading and Search.

Outdoor media also continued to deliver strong ad spend with the total increasing 16.9 percent in August while Cinema ad spend grew 82 percent. 

Among key Product Category trends there has been another large decline in Government category ad spend of 19 percent as spending from that category normalises post Covid.

That decline was more than offset by strong growth from key categories such as Specialty Retailers  (+34.9 percent YOY) and Toiletries/Cosmetics (+39.6 percent).

SMI’s calendar year-to-date results for New Zealand reveal the ad market remains at a record high with total ad spend up 6.3 percent.

More detail on the August ad spend trends can be found below:

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