Australian ad market remains confident despite global slowdown

“The continuing confidence in our ad market is very much highlighted by the fact that these forward pacings are so strong, as the market delivered a very high record level of ad spend in November 2021 – the total was more than $50 million larger than any previous November month,’’ said Ractliffe.

``And we can already see that ad spend representing 98% of last November’s Cinema bookings are confirmed; 91% of last November’s Radio bookings are confirmed, and 90% of last November’s TV bookings are confirmed.’’

The growth is being driven by the robust investment in OOH, which has surged 51% year-on-year to pass the $100m mark, and Cinema, which more than doubled in spend in October.

Retail ad spend grew 10% year-on-year, while automotive brand expenditure was up 29% in the same period last year.

``It’s clear that the ad demand we’re currently seeing in the Australian market is broad-based, reflecting a strong underlying economy and a good sense of confidence in the market.

“And given the months of growth, it’s not surprising that SMI is reporting a record level of ad spend this financial year with that total up 4.9%, while over the calendar year, the total ad spend is up 8.8% to another record level," she said.

Ractliffe said these figures were higher than SMI had ever reported for these periods.

The market confidence is contrary to global predictions that jittery marketers are slashing advertising spending as inflation and the cost-of-living crisis impact economies.

A recent study by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and Ebiquity found a third (29%) of those surveyed plan to decrease spend next year.