Media agency 2017 spend hits $7.11b – SMI reports fifth consecutive record

Australia's media agency market is reporting its fifth consecutive year of record advertising expenditure, with the CY 2017 total already up 0.7% to $7.11 billion, reports SMI.

Despite a cautious start to the year, the media of digital, outdoor, radio and cinema all reported record agency bookings in CY2017 while television bookings were back only 0.7%.

For the month of December, the market is back 3.0%, but it will push into positive territory and a new record high for the month once late digital bookings are received at month end.

December's metropolitan TV market is the best performing off the back of a strong Ashes series with total ad spend up 9.7%.

SMI AU/NZ managing director Jane Ractliffe (nee Schulze) said the record calendar year result is a surprise given the strength of the 2016 market which featured large one-off advertising events such as the Federal election and Rio Olympics.

"This time last year the market was extremely cautious as there were no scheduled events in 2017 that were expected to spur advertising demand," she said.

"But you never know what’s around the corner, and in the second half of this year we’ve seen especially strong growth from the government category due to advertising surrounding the Same Sex Marriage debate and the Queensland election, with the category providing an extra $53.6 million to the market in this period," she said.

The retail market remains unexpectedly weak given the time of year with total spending for December so far back 7.5%. Beneath that headline number the figures show most of the weaker demand is centred in the food/alcoholic retailers market which is back 13.7% in December. In contrast, discount stores/online retail advertisers have lifted their ad spend 22.2% from December 2016.

SMI is predicting key sporting events such as the Commonwealth Games, Winter Olympics and Soccer World Cup are expected to attract unusually large ad spend.