New Zealand’s media agency market has started the new 2022 year with a bang, delivering a record level of ad spend for the month with the total lifting 14 percent in January to be $3 million above the previous January high set in 2017.
And the SMI results highlight the evolving advertising market as Television bookings fell back 2.1 percent while Digital revenues again soared – this time by 18.6 percent – and within that Digital Video revenues jumped 60 percent year-on-year.
SMI AU/NZ Managing Director Jane Ractliffe says the results are a further testament to the strength of the New Zealand advertising economy as it continues to move well past the Covid era.
“The value of New Zealand’s advertising market in January is not only well above pre-COVID levels but also 5.6% above the last record level of January ad spend set in 2017, which underscores the strength of the ad demand we’re currently experiencing,” she says.
Across other media, Radio media also delivered healthy growth of 18.9 percent and the Outdoor media’s recovery stepped up another notch despite the ongoing lockdowns with revenue growth of 38.9 percent. Similarly, Cinema’s recovery continued with its spend up 74.3 percent.
The top three spending Product Categories all showed double-digit gains, led by Government which was up 65.6 percent to $10 million. Retail advertising lifted a healthy 40.5 percent to $6.8 million and Specialty Retailers gained 22.8 percent to $6.3 million.
Among key product categories, Ractliffe says the headline news was the emergence of the Government category as the market’s largest in January after lifting the value of its media investment by 66 percent year-on-year as the Government continued messaging in response to the Covid pandemic.
However, Ractliffe says the SMI data showed the current level of ad demand was being fuelled by a concentrated number of product categories, with a third of the major categories reporting lower ad spend than in January 2019.
“The growth in Government category ad spend is underpinning the market, but there are many large categories which are spending less now than in January 2019 with key examples being Banks, Toiletries/Cosmetics and Communications.
“Media companies need to be well across these changing trends to maximise revenues during this high-growth period.”
