‘Marketers are adopting a more cautious approach’: Aussie ad spend plummets in Q1
Soft marketing spend during the month of March has dragged down the entire first quarter, despite a huge increase in Government spending.
Guideline SMI’s results for the month of March show a 6.6% fall in ad demand, which it says is “partly due to Easter timing”.
This has resulted in a 3.7% drop in spend for the March quarter – compared to the first three months of 2023. This is despite the success of various sector within – Outdoor is reporting Q1 spend rose 1.4%, Digital jumped 2.7%, and Cinema was up 8.4%.
The month of March saw government spent up 36%, year on year, due to the Tasmanian election. This was offset by drastic drops in Travel and Communications marketing.
“As only the Government and Auto Brand categories lifted their Australian media investment by more than $5 million in March it seems as though most marketers are adopting a more cautious approach to their ad budgets in the first half of this year,’’ Guideline SMI APAC managing director Jane Ractliffe said.
“March demand was at least in part impacted by the timing of Easter — last year the holiday was entirely in April — but even so we saw only 35% of categories grow investment and at least some would also be waiting to see how the market evolves after the July Olympics.”
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Nathan Jolly is the Deputy Editor of Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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