Records Fall As Ad Market Storms Out Of Covid

NEW Zealand’s media agency market has emerged strongly from the bruising COVID pandemic in a far stronger state, with advertising revenues soaring 19.1% in CY2021 to move well out of the COVID doldrums and back beyond the $1 billion mark and set a new record level for NZ ad spend.

Total bookings hit $1,090,860,177 in CY2021, which was $85,302 above the last record year for ad spend set in CY2017. The result was fuelled by strong growth in Government Category ad spend across the year as the COVID pandemic continued, with that category’s total investment jumping 24% to emerge as the largest with ad spend of $128.1 million.

SMI AU/NZ Managing Director Jane Ractliffe said the market result was an exceptional result, especially given the ongoing COVID restrictions.

``Given advertising expenditure is so strongly correlated to GDP, this SMI data provides a very strong indication that the broader NZ economy is moving well beyond the original COVID downturn and has instead learned to function extremely effectively in the new COVID era,’’ she said.

Both the Digital and Radio media have delivered record levels of ad spend for both the CY2021 and December month periods, and over the course of the year 15 of the 20 largest product categories have spent more on advertising than in the pre-COVID 2019 period.

``The fact that so many large categories are spending more on advertising now than before the pandemic started really does underscore the fact that the level of confidence in today’s market is at unprecedented levels,’’ Ractliffe said.

And she said the year was also notable for consistent growth in Agency bookings, with the growth rate the highest in the first half of the year (+30.9%) given the prior period was the first and most challenging wave of COVID declines in ad spend. But the positive momentum continued, with ad spend lifting 10.5% in the December half to a record level; lifting 2.9% to a record December quarter and up 3% in the December month to another record level of $95 million.

Among the major media, TV bookings fell 13.7% but the Digital media made huge gains with a 15.6% increase in bookings and Radio ad spend grew 13.8%.

And Ractliffe said New Zealand’s strong advertising market looks set to continue unheeded in January, with SMI’s NZ Forward Pacings data already showing the market to be up 3% on the same month a year ago even without the inclusion of any Digital ad spend detail.

About Standard Media Index

Standard Media Index was established in 2009 in Sydney and has offices in New York, London and Madrid. SMI partners with leading global media buying agencies to provide independent, accurate and timely advertising expenditure data to its clients to facilitate informed analysis of the media sector and product category expenditure. Data is sourced directly from advertising agencies’ billing systems and then aggregated to show the combined picture of media Agency ad spend across all major media, media sectors, 41 product categories and more than 145 sub categories. It allows subscribers to monitor and analyse key data points that can be actioned to grow share and make better investment decisions. SMI provides the only clear picture on how ad dollars are being spent. Its Australian data covers more than 98% of all Agency spend and SMI works with media Agencies in more than 15 global markets.

www.standardmediaindex.com

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