Media bookings for July are showing strong double digit growth, partly boosted by the Tokyo Olympics broadcast, according to early SMI (Standard Media Index) data.
The interim numbers for July, with late media digital booking data still to come, show the value of advertising already up 18.3%.
July bookings so far are $6 million below that achieved in the pre-COVID world of the same month in 2019.
Analysts say the addition of digital media ad spend will likely push total growth for the month to 40.8%.
"This is now the fourth straight month in which we’ll be reporting a growth rate beyond 40% and that’s an extraordinary turnaround in the market from the COVID downturn seen last year," says SMI AU/NZ Managing Director Jane Ractliffe.
"We always expected the ad market to bounce back but I think most observers would be surprised at the strength of ongoing demand."
The market was so far staying the course, despite the latest COVID outbreaks, with no evidence of reduced demand visible in SMI’s Forward Pacings data.
"With more than half the month of August to go we can already see the value of ad spend for the month is only 2% below that achieved for the whole of August last year, highlighting another month of huge demand, while the level of ad demand now seen for September is well above where it was at this point over the past two years,’’ she says.
"This also mirrors what we’re hearing from our media agency partners … with the first wave of COVID last year there was an instant retraction of ad spend but that’s definitely not happening this time.
"The market may be more cautious, but there’s not the instant mass cancellation of campaigns that we saw last time as the market has become more accustomed to managing the new COVID environment."
The month of July was most notable for the successful Tokyo Olympics broadcast on Seven, which aided 41.9% increase in TV ad spend, with the TV total $33 million more than reported for July 2019.
Other media also performed well in July with the Outdoor media’s recovery continuing with a 98% increase in ad spend; Radio bookings are already up 12% and advertisers are returning strongly to cinema with the media reporting July ad spend of $3.5 million compared to $179,000 last year.
A new Retail Online Digital sector has been introduced to the SMI database this month to provide more focus on the emerging eCommerce/Retail market.
"One of the key trends emerging from the COVID crisis has been the increase in online shopping in all its forms, and as more advertisers use retail websites as an advertising platform we wanted to ensure we were correctly tracking this in the database,’’ Ractliffe says.
This is the second new media sector introduced into the SMI AU dataset this year, with a Programmatic Outdoor sector joining as a new part of the Outdoor media landscape in April this year.
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