Total online advertising spend in New Zealand for Q1 2012 totalled $79 million, up $11 million year-on year. But that figure is down almost $10 million on Q3 2011. And over on TV, total television advertising revenue for the March quarter rose four percent to $125 million, up $4 million on the first quarter of 2011.
The increase for TV marks four consecutive quarters of year-on-year growth and, according to Rick Friesen, chief executive of ThinkTV, it demonstrates the increasing confidence advertisers have in television.
“Advertisers are becoming increasingly innovative in how they use television to underpin campaigns, especially in how they link the TV campaign with the growing number of digital media channels to drive consumers from couch to point-of-sale.”
Data released by the Advertising Standards Authority shows television is now New Zealand’s largest medium by ad revenue, with advertisers spending $618 million on television airtime in 2011, compared with $607 million in 2010. Newspapers fell to second place for the first time with revenue of $582 million, down from $627 million.
According to Nielsen, New Zealanders spent more time than ever watching TV in 2011, with over three million people watching television every day and each person watching on average three hours and 22 minutes a day. In America, at least, those watching TV have never been older, but, perhaps slightly ironically, the rise of social media tools and digital connectivity in the younger demographics means ‘second screening’ and social TV is giving live TV broadcasts of popular shows some renewed vigour.
As for online, all three major sectors—display, search & directories and classifieds—continued to show growth year-on-year, with classifieds up 17 percent, search & directories up 15 percent and display up nine percent.
“14 percent is fantastic year-on-year growth for online ad expenditure,” says Alisa Higgins, IAB New Zealand’s general manager.
Still, after rampant digital growth over the past few years, there are very high expectations, and this is just one third of the rate seen in Q3 2011, when it increased by 27 percent year-on-year. So with the likes of GM pulling out of Facebook advertising citing poor results, and stats like this that show you’re more likely to climb Everest, have twins or win American Idol than click on a banner ad, some might be wondering if some of the digital glitz is starting to fade a little.
Online video ad spend increased by 21 percent year-on-year while the investment, finance and banking, travel and accommodation and government departments, services and communities sectors continue to be dominant in the display channel, representing 40 percent of the advertising market in Q1, 2012, up from 36 percent in Q1, 2011.
The automotive category moved up to fourth place with 11 percent share of display ad spend, which is the highest ever share for this category in New Zealand.
“Beautiful rich media ads help car manufacturers showcase new features and benefits and video display advertising should see an increase in ad spend during 2012,” says Liz Fraser, IABNZ chair and general manager of MSN New Zealand.
Fraser says the classifieds category was the winner in Q1 2012 with $26.3m, increasing year-on-year by 17 percent and quarter-on-quarter by 11 percent. Classifieds advertising accounted for 33 percent of online advertising spend, taking share from both Display and Search & Directories (29% and 38% respectively).
Across the ditch, Australia grew 19 percent year-on-year while also experiencing increases within all the channels. While search & directories and display lost some share to classifieds this quarter in NZ, in Australia, both search & directories and classifieds took share from display.
