Australia to deliver fifth consecutive year of FY ad spend growth

Australia will deliver its fifth consecutive year of record financial year ad spend in 2016/17 to reach in excess of $7.1 billion, new data from SMI has confirmed.

The Australian market was back just 0.1% compared to FY 2016. However, when SMI collects late digital bookings at the end of this month, ad spend will reach yet another record.

The television sector claimed the lion’s share of ad spend from media agencies in FY 2017, at $3.1b, followed by digital at $1.9b and out-of-home at $864 million. Radio followed with $580m, then newspapers (excluding digital) at $449m, magazines (excluding digital) $159m and cinema $75m.

The SMI FY 2017 data also showed the fastest-growing media sectors compared to the previous corresponding period of FY 2016. Digital programmatic exchanges recorded the biggest increase in ad spend of all sectors, jumping 67.3% to $338m, followed by social sites up 20.8% to $229m and posters/billboards up 18% to $338m. Other sectors to quickly grow ad spend in the year were sporting venues (up 12.8%), search affiliates (up 9.6%) and street furniture (up 6.1%).

“The market was stronger in the first half of the financial year, with total ad spend up 1.2% to $3.7b, but suffered in the second half due to the backdrop of huge Federal Election ad spend at the same time in 2016, which saw ad spend decline by 1.6%,” SMI AU/NZ managing director Jane Schulze said.