Government falls from first to fifth in adspend league
The Federal government almost halved its advertising spend in 2008, according to new figures prepared by research company Nielsen. The government’s spend fell by 47.7%, according to today’s print edition of AdNews. It means that in just 12 months the Commonwealth Government has gone from being Australia’s number one advertiser to fifth biggest, with an estimated spend for the year of around $115m.
The drop in spend was not entirely unexpected, given that the Rudd Government has sent strong signals that its communications budget would be much lower than the dying days of the Howard government, but nonetheless, the fall has not helped Australia’s beleaguered media owners.
According to the numbers – which for the first time also take in estimated online spend, Wesfarmers (which includes Coles, Bunnings, Kmart, Target and Liquorland) is now Australia’s biggest advertiser with an estimated spend of around $225m.
In the top 25 advertisers, David Jones was estimated to have grown its expenditure the most – rising by 27.3% to around $50m, while Qantas was close behind with an increase of 25.3% to $60m.
After the decline in federal government spend, the next biggest fall came from Holden, down 18.5% to $55m.
Individual state governments remain major advertisers in their own right though, with the NSW and Victorian governments each spending approaching $100m. Nielsen puts the Queensland governments spend at $65m.
The top 10 spending advertisers:
- Wesfarmers – $225 +5.1%
- Tesltra – $160m +6.8%
- Harvey Holdings – $135m +16.8%
- Woolworths – $135 +17.6%
- Commonwelath Gvt – $115m – -47.7%
- Nestle / L’Oreal – $115m -5.2%
- NSW Gvt – $95m +17.3%
- Victorian Gvt – $95m +17.3%
- Toyota – $80m +9.5%
- Suncorp- $80m -8.5%
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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