Outdoor advertising grows 15.8% in September: SMI Report

Outdoor advertising led the recovery in Australian ad demand in September, achieving significant growth of 15.8%. This surge has raised Outdoor’s market share to a record 16%.

Overall, total ad bookings in Australia improved, with only a 1.5% decline compared to the record spending reported in the same month last year, according to Guideline SMI’s September results.

Jane Ractliffe, Guideline SMI APAC managing director, said Outdoor’s growth was very broad-based, with every Outdoor sector reporting double-digit growth in ad revenues this month.

"It’s clear many product categories are moving their media investments from both Digital and Television to Outdoor as we’re seeing large category share swings. For example, the Food category has grown its Outdoor investment by 46% this month while the Banking category has lifted its Outdoor spend by 46.2%," she said.

"It’s also evident in the In-Home Entertainment category (which mostly comprises ad spend by TV Streaming brands) as the Streamers have typically allocated more than 70% of their ad budgets to TV and Digital, but this month, Outdoor’s share of TV Streaming ad spend has grown to 34% from 18% in September 2023."

Ractliffe noted that the growth in Australian Outdoor media was also replicated in NZ with GL SMI’s September data showing NZ Outdoor ad spend up 16% this month to an even higher record share of 19% of all NZ September agency ad spend.

The results showed Digital ad spend grew 0.3% overall; Cinema showed a lower-than-market decline of 1%, and both linear TV and Radio benefited from higher digital bookings, with the Video and Audio (linear plus digital) totals back just 6.4% and 2.6%, respectively.

Among the categories, the strongest growth in ad demand came from the Banking product category (+13.9% driven by growth in sponsorship investments), Government ad spend (also +13.9%) and Toiletries/Cosmetics (+18.3% as bookings from both Skin and Oral Care advertisers doubled).

Ractliffe said the better September data also indicated market growth this calendar year, as September quarter ad demand is back just 0.9% while for the nine months of the 2024 calendar year the market is back just 0.2%, or $9.7 million.

“The reality is that the market remains very short, so we’ve continued to receive extra late bookings for previous months and that’s resulted in total spend over the nine months being back by less than $10 million in a $6 billion-plus market,”she said.

“And with the momentum now evident in key parts of the Australian ad market, we remain confident that we’ll be reporting advertising market growth for the full 2024 calendar year.”