Media buyers pray for turnaround in new financial year
Tajer
Senior media buyers say they are pleased to close the books on a tough and somewhat volatile financial year in advertising and hope for growth in the second half of 2013.
Despite May’s Standard Media Index figures showing a 3.5 per cent across the board decline compared to the same time last year, Henry Tajer, executive chairman of Mediabrands, is optimistic there will be a rebound in the third and fourth quarters of 2013.
“The best way to describe this financial year is that it has been challenging,” Tajer told Encore.
However, he also said it was “going to be the last of the really challenging periods”.
Tajer points to factors including the likely resolution of the hung parliament, interest rates, unemployment and the falling Aussie dollar as positives for the advertising market.
“They all have positive implications for our clients and we see a lot of opportunities in that,” he said. “It all leads to what I think will be a more confident market and a healthier advertising sector.”
Ian Perrin, CEO of ZenithOptimedia, shares this view. “We are starting to see some momentum build in the marketplace to the end of the fiscal year and we can definitely see that continuing quite strongly on the back half of the calendar year,” Perrin said.
Sharb Farjami, chief operating officer of Mindshare, said 2012-13 has seen large declines particularly for print and magazines.
“It has been a very volatile market, even some of the steady players have seen volatility in the big media as well as the not so large media,” said Farjami. “You have two types of market shifts; you have market shifts that are short term and corrections, for example TV this year, and then you have traditional shifts, in say print and magazines, where yes, consumers are moving away from certain mediums.”
According to SMI data for July 2012 to May 2013, both magazines and newspapers fell more than 20 per cent while digital rose by almost a quarter. “Magazines and print will find their place,” Farjami said. “Print still probably has a way to dip, but there are a lot of things that publishers are doing to mitigate those circumstances.”
Tajer said he was confident print and magazines would find ways to slow the decline in ad revenue.
“There has been a broad recalibration of spend profile in the market and that has resulted in the sort of spikes we are seeing in SMI,” said Tajer. “I would expect moving forward we would see more moderate rates of decline and potentially some growth in certain areas.”
Overall the TV market remained stable although data received by Encore suggests Ten’s share of the TV revenue pie is sitting at 22 per cent compared with 25 per cent of the commercial audience share.
“There has been some quite extreme trends in the market,” said Farjami. “Things that are bad tend to be perceived as worse than they are, but my view is that there is an advantage to be had at all ends of the market.”
ZO’s Ian Perrin is optimistic Ten can grow its share.
“What has been surprising for me has been the consistent strength of the television market driven by some high quality programming from Seven and a resurgent Nine.”
Nic Christensen
This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.
How do they explain the 20%+ dip on magazines when paid circ is down 5-7% at worst? Is the spend in line with consumers moving away from the format?
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