SMI tracks political party, union and industry association ad spend
• SMI has been tracking the advertising expenditure of all major political parties
• Four months of ad spend prior to 2016 and 2019 federal elections
• TV loses ad share to other mediums in months before voting day
SMI has been tracking the advertising expenditure of all major political parties, unions and industry associations and lobby groups since creating this as a separate SMI product category mid last year.
As all data history came with the new category, this is the first time SMI has been able to clearly show how the collective media shares of these advertisers have changed in the lead up to two federal elections.
Apart from the reduced advertising expenditure, there’s also been a significant change in the category’s media mix, with television losing share to radio (actual category ad spend grew 16.9%), digital (category ad spend up 9.8%) and press (Category ad spend up 79%).
Advertisers included in this data include the state and federal offices of the Liberal and Labor Parties, the Greens, the Nationals, Centre Alliance and various Union campaigns (CFMEU, Change the Rules etc). It does not include ad spend for Clive Palmer’s UAP in either period as that party has purchased all advertising directly from media groups.
SMI will update this detail to reflect the final weeks of election campaigning in May with its May data release.
