June advertising spend, as measured by media agency bookings, fell 5.5%.
The SMI (Standard Media Index) result compared to the the same month in 2022 and indicates an ongoing slide, with June being the first month to compare to 2022 without a federal election spend clouding numbers.
Outdoor media maintained its gains with bookings up 18.4% and printed magazines increased revenue by 4.6%.
Ben Willee, general manager and media director at Spinach, says the ad market has been remarkably resilient given the many headwinds, especially cost of living and consumer confidence.
"I know the RBA is currently about as popular as a cockroach at high tea, but it’s highly likely that history will judge them positively," he says.
"So far, the inflation monster is being controlled, and we appear to be heading for a soft landing.
"House prices are on the up and unemployment remains low, so it won’t be a big stretch for consumer confidence to improve. Improvements in consumer and business confidence invariably lead to increases in the ad market."
The latest SMI numbers show June quarter ad spend was down 5.4% (or -2% ex government and political party ad spend) and for the calendar year-to-date the market is back 4.2% but again only back 0.7% with government and political party ad spend removed.
For the financial year to the end of June, underlying ad spend was up 2.2%, while at the headline level the total is back just 0.2% to $8.8 billion.
The underlying result removes the effect of abnormal government and political party category ad spend related to COVID and last year’s May Federal election, with those categories back more than $200 million on a combined basis this financial year.
The star performer over these 12 months has been outdoor with total ad revenues lifting 23.9% to $1.2 billion.
Jane Ractliffe, SMI APAC managing director, said the result confirmed outdoor has finally moved beyond the calamitous COVID period.
"Outdoor was easily the media most affected by COVID given the loss of more than $300 million in ad revenues between the 2018/19 and 2020/21 periods during the public lockdowns,’’ Ractliffe said.
"It’s been a long road back but the industry has harnessed emerging technologies and developed new inventory to now be in an even stronger position than it was pre-COVID."
At a product category level, Travel has shown the greatest increase from the pre-COVID lows with its total up 46.5% this financial year followed by Automotive Brand ad spend which has lifted 20.8%.
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