May The Fourth be With You - May 2022

MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU

As Luke Skywalker was urged to trust the Force, so to is Trust (or Distrust) omnipresent in the advertising business. We work in an Industry where trust is a prime currency and a lot of this is granted…or taken for granted! We don’t often think about it.  In 2021, SMI says $8.6 billion was put through the Media Agency Industry of which a large amount is conducted via phone or Email – all done on trust. To a large extent, the Media sub-contract all financial risk to Media Agencies, because of the conditions and qualifications of Media Accreditation. Never-the-less each one of us are earning Trust or Distrust through our interaction with the Media. What we do, how we communicate, how we say it, how truthful, transparent and forthright we are, and in observing protocols and deadlines. Decades ago, trust was where most everything was done under the guise of your word is your bond. As most books about the history of Advertising attest, historically verbal agreements were the currency. However the dollars at stake are far greater today.

Beyond this is the much bigger field of consumer based trust and distrust, in services, in brands and their owners.

Morgan Research have been tracking this comprehensively for 4 years since 2019, (in the case of Government partially for 15 years, since 2007). Morgan now conduct a great quarterly presentation of their analysis of findings, trends and rankings.

As Morgan point out, a lot of Clients and Marketing people use Net Promoter Scores, as a yardstick of Brand standing with Consumers, positive consumer scores minus negative = NPS. The issue there is it is simplistic and often done in a silo not taking into account the underlying trends or competitor comparisons. Today (perhaps for ever) the most important trend line is those who Trust or Distrust the Brand or service (or person/personality).

During the past two years of Covid, really significant changes in rankings have occurred. Supermarkets trended upwards and scored heavily and positively due to their responsiveness. They adapted to challenging conditions and various Governments regulations, primarily concerning how to handle Covid and the often resultant panic buying.

For an entirely different reason,  Banks have trended upwardly in past two years, post the 2017 Royal Commission into Banking. They largely took the findings and were given the opportunity through Covid, Fires and Floods, to mend their ways and treat their customer/clients with greater care and respect.

Conversely,  those whom have not handled their interaction and social responsibility well with the public, have suffered huge reversals, AMP and Rio Tinto the outstanding examples, but many more have changed score and ranking.

Trust and Distrust scores plus trajectory through tracking and trending, are today THE new currency for Brand health, success and longevity.

WHAT’S NEW IN MEDIA – AFL TV RIGHTS UP FOR GRABS

Late 2021 saw Ch9 and Foxtel secure the NRL TV rights worth $400 million per year for the next 5 years, also on the cards right now is the TV rights for the AFL.  They are worth a staggering $470 million per year and Ch7 have held the rights exclusively for the past 10 years on Free TV.

As it stands Seven holds the broadcast rights and Foxtel Group the pay TV, which is spread across both Foxtel broadcast and its streaming platform Kayo. Although there was a two-year extension agreed during the pandemic, the last time the rights were properly negotiated was in 2015. It was a deal worth $2.5bn for six years.  Most of the money came from Foxtel, with owner News Corp infuriated at being blindsided by NRL doing a deal with Nine.

Despite the fact it’s almost a certainty as a guaranteed loss, the networks can’t pass up such a draw card ratings winner. It’ no surprise the bidding war has commenced from major networks for a 5-year deal from 2024.

However, there is another factor at play here in that Ch10, who was largely discounted over previous bids on AFL rights is in a much stronger position with support from its parent company (Paramount).

Seven knows that losing the AFL will spell disaster as it was for Ch10 when they moved away from the AFL shared rights between themselves and Ch9. The future of AFL and to safeguard the sport long term will be a deciding factor in the bid, although one would argue Ch7 is in a better position over Ch10 right now. However, if history is anything to go by, the AFL TV rights will be secured by whoever has the ‘deepest pockets’ – and one thing is for certain – a truck load of cash is going to be needed to make this deal happen

DIGITAL – XBUCKS & PAYSTATION – ADS IN VIDEO GAMES

Last week Microsoft and Sony both expressed their interest in allowing in-game ads on both Xbox and PlayStation respectively, as the gaming super giants have coincidentally shared their plans at the same time.

Microsoft’s goal is to generate revenue through ads such as in-game billboards, signs and screens. The ads would only be available on free-to-play games (think Halo, Apex Legends, Destiny and multiple more) which proves the adage “nothing is free in life”. Sony‘s plan has been in the works for around 18 months and also indicates ads will only be available on free-to-play games (Fortnite, Warzone, PUBG and a bucket load more). Sony has suggested players could watch ads to earn in-game benefits (eg. skins), the possibilities are truly endless.

This news comes just after a major development in the mobile gaming industry earlier in April. ‘InMobi’, a provider of content, monetisation, and marketing technologies, has signed a deal with in-game ads platform ‘Anzu’. Anzu allows advertisers to run content, still to IAB standard, projected onto 3D objects in the game, such as banners, buildings and billboards. The goal is to blend the ads into the game’s surroundings so they look to be part of the game.

This could become more a popular advertising medium given there is an estimated 3.24 billion gamers across the globe. Interestingly, Asia Pacific is the largest market for video gaming worldwide with 1.48 billion gamers while Europe comes in second place with a gaming audience of 715 million. If you would like more information visit https://www.anzu.io/

SMI UPDATE – MARCH 2022

March continued the positive run of growth in advertising spend in Australia. With a total spend of $697.4 million it was 2.8% higher than March’21. The first quarter of 2022 is now 9.4% higher than Jan-Mar’21 and 9.8% higher than Jan-Mar’20. SMI also monitors the forward bookings for April and May which are showing especially strong levels of growth and more evidence of continuing growth.

Once again, Government expenditure increased enormously (+109.7%) and is now challenging Retail as the largest category spender. The Government spend has increased close to threefold since Jan-Mar’20. Communications (+53.2%) and Financial Services (+44.6%) continued their strong growth. The Insurance sector is also increasing its advertising spend (+15.6%) while the Automotive category continued its decline (-2.8%).

Radio had a strong month with a +10% growth. The vast majority of that came from Regional Radio that grew +18.5%. The interesting trend has been that Regional advertising spend is doing much better than its Metropolitan counterparts.  Regional TV, Regional Press and Regional Radio have all had positive increases for the past two months. Digital increased by +11.6% while TV declined -1.7%.  News Media (Print & Digital) also declined by -12% and so to Magazines (inc. digital) by -13.9%. Cinema again had a solid month with a +65.2% increase.

FAST FACTS

1. Camels have 3 stomachs
2. 64% of Australians would like to lose weight (Morgan)
3. Lightning strikes the earth 100 times every second
4. There are more galaxies in the universe than grains of sand on earth
5. On average, each person takes around 20,000 breathes per day
6. 50,000 calls a day are made on Aust. Payphones – fyi, they are now free

At the Easter Show, 34,204 scones were baked by the CWA

by Harshit Ahuja

Trust Us, We're In Politics Not Advertising - April 2022

TRUST US, WE’RE IN ADVERTISING POLITICS!

Given the date for our next Federal election must be called this week, we thought it timely to look at Roy Morgan’s 5^th year of measuring Trust and Distrust in Australia. Morgan says the election won’t be won on trust but will be lost on distrust as people will no longer believe the government. Morgan has a net Trust or Distrust score compiled by subtracting the level of distrust from the trust.  So, if someone is trusted by 30% of people but distrusted by 50%, they would have a -20 Net Distrust score. Morgan’s poll, before the budget, shows Australians’ voting intentions are split 42% for the LNP and 58% for Labor. The gap has now shrunk somewhat since the budget.

The further bad news for the Liberal party is despite a war and global pandemic, which would normally see a swing to the existing government, the electorate deeply distrusts the government.  The good economic news does not seem to be saving the government. Unemployment is at its lowest since 2008, the share market has hit a record high, interest rates are at a record low, GDP is growing, Retail sales are booming and Australian’s savings are at unusually high levels.  In spite of all this, consumer confidence is at a low level of 91.2 which is 17 points down since the beginning of the year.

In early March, Morgan conducted research to determine who our most trusted and distrusted politicians are.  The highest Net Trust scores were dominated by Labor politicians and females. Penny Wong came in at No.1 (prior to the mean girls episode), Anthony Albanese was No.2  and Tanya Plibersek No.3.  Gladys Berejiklian came it at 6^th despite not being in parliament and very few people seem to distrust Jacqui Lambie.

The highest Net Distrust scores were dominated by coalition men.  Clive Palmer scored the highest in Distrust but he is not in parliament – perhaps something else money can’t buy?  For those in parliament, Scott Morrison had the highest Net Distrust, Peter Dutton was No.2 and Barnaby Joyce No. 3.  Over the last two years, Josh Frydenburg is the big improver having dropped from No.4 to No.9 least trusted. Perhaps he is the Steven Bradbury of the Liberals. Interestingly, on Trust alone, Morrison has the highest in the Liberals with Frydenburg second.  It is the distrust that lets Morrison down as it is huge for Morrison (and Dutton) meaning they score highly on Net distrust.

Morgan also measures Trust and Distrust on Industry Sectors and Brands. Supermarkets are Australians most trusted sector with Banking dropping down 14 places to become the 2^nd most distrusted sector in the economy. Insurance fell 13 places from 4^th to 17^th while the Media sector was down seven rankings from 16^th to 23^rd. People lost trust in the ABC, but it is still the most trusted media brand.

In terms of Brands, the most trusted brand in Australia is Woolworths followed by Coles, Bunnings and Aldi. The most distrusted brands are Facebook at No.1, Telstra (2), Amazon (3) and Google (4).  The big fall from grace came from Harvey Norman and Uber who were amongst the most trusted brands in 2019 and are now both in the top 20 most distrusted brands.

Trust is the foundation of all human connections, from intimate relationships to everyday business transactions. It is particularly important in business as we buy off people we trust, like and respect and we give those people the last chance to lose the business. To quote a great philosopher, Billy Joel, “It’s a matter of Trust”!

WHAT’S NEW IN MEDIA – ADVERTISING COMING TO SVOD!

Last month we wrote about the slowdown in SVOD audience growth and said a maturing consumer demand suggests an audience plateau sometime in 2022.  Who would have thought Disney was reading our article? Since our last Pulse, Disney announced it will be launching a Disney+ ad supported platform due to come to Australia in 2023.  Disney have already seen success with paid ad-supported platforms, with its US based service Hulu.  60% of its paying customers are subscribed to the system through ad supported memberships.  Echoing this sentiment, NBC’s streaming platform Peacock reported that only 4% of its entire subscription base are on the full price plan with the rest opting for at least some level of advertisements.

This is good news for us in the advertising business as it is evident that consumers are prepared to accept ads in exchange for a reduced cost or free video on demand service.  The trend in the US will probably be mirrored in Australia very soon, as consumers look to cut costs amidst astronomical fuel and grocery prices. Households in Australia subscribe to an average of 4.3 entertainment services and streaming services may soon find that without a lower price point offering, they may see subscriber numbers begin to dip for the first time.

Australia’s No.1 SVOD service, Netflix, has naturally relied on audience growth and subscription price increases to keep shareholders happy. This can be a difficult task based on Netflix’s volatile share price which is around 50% down from Nov’21. It is reasonable to assume Netflix is under a little pressure having borrowed $16 billion over 10 years and now seeing larger companies like the Walt Disney Company (Disney+), Apple and AT&T (HBO Max) making big inroads in streaming. The announcement from Disney seems to signal a changing of strategy from Netflix whose CEO commented on the Disney move by saying “Never say never”, a strong departure from Netflix’s steadfast No Ad policy.

Whilst BVOD has become flavour of the day, it may not be long before we are talking a lot more about AVOD (advertising video on demand).

DIGITAL – GA4, TIME TO CHANGE YOUR GOOGLE ANALYTICS

That’s right.  Google are moving to a new version of analytics, “Google Analytics 4”.  Perhaps the imminent death of ‘cookies’ and the issues around privacy have driven the arrival of GA4. Google describes the new version as the next generation solution to “privacy-first” tracking and artificial intelligence (AI) based predictive data all in one app.  Essentially, the AI should fill out the gaps in data for website traffic and user behaviour without relying on the traditional method, using “cookies”.

GA4 allows marketers to understand their consumer to greater depth.  The ability to extrapolate existing data and make assumptions about website traffic/user behaviour takes digital marketing capabilities to the next level.  It’s clear that it can be difficult to understand a consumer's patterns and actions.  Luckily for all, GA4 allows for a more complete understanding of the customer journey across multiple devices. The new tool lets marketers easily edit, fine tune and correct the way events are tracked, without having to incorporate coding to alter the script (like the previous version).

Should you get onboard with the new GA4?  Absolutely, as soon as possible! After June 2023 your existing GA won’t work and you will only be able to analyse any old data for 6 months before it is gone. Ideally you should back up as much existing GA data as you can. To compare year on year data it is crucial GA4 is in place and running smoothly by June 2022.

SMI UPDATE – FEBRUARY 2022

February was going to be a difficult month when compared to last year as the 2021 Australian Open was in Feb’21 but moved back to January this year.

However, the February spend of $595 million was still 3.3% up on Feb’21. We have now had more than 12 months of continuous growth and the YTD is 22% up on the previous year YTD.  Jan-Feb’22 is even 9.4% up on the pre-covid Jan-Feb’20 period.

Well, here’s a surprise, Government spend was once again the stellar performer in February, spending $42.4 million which is a 73.7% increase on Feb’21.  Travel continues to recover strongly and increased 40.1%, while ‘Communications’ (+37.1%), Financial Services (+30.5%) and Insurance (+17.5%) also had strong increases.  Automotive continued to reduce their spend and was -3.3% down for the month. Perhaps understandable if you’ve tried to buy a car lately.

Television expenditure was down -7.1% due to the metro markets as Regional TV spend was up +2.5%. Digital was up +17.8% with strong support from the Automotive category and a +19.2% increase in ‘Display’ activity.  Radio had a modest +0.1% increase and again this was due to Regional Radio which was up +5.1% while Metro Radio spend was down -1.7%. ‘Digital’ Radio also increased +39.8%.  Outdoor increased by +7.5% with QMS having the strongest Feb growth at +24.2%. News Media spend (Printed & Digital papers) grew by +1.2% and Magazines (Print & Digital) declined by -9.4%.  As expected, Cinema had another strong increase of +107.2% compared to Feb21.

FAST FACTS

1. Princess Anne last attended the Sydney Royal Easter Show in 1988
2. The Anzacs were all volunteers
3. Oh to be a snail – they can sleep for 3 years
4. The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows
5. The ABS Retail sales figures for February 2022 are up +9.07%
6. Only 28.2% of Australians agree “its important to look fashionable” (Morgan)
7. You lose up to 30 percent of your taste buds during flight
8. In Germany, it is illegal to dance on Good Friday
9. Book your holiday quick - over 4 mill Aussies are planning a trip away this Easter

by Harshit Ahuja

Reality Dating Shows - March 2022

REALITY DATING SHOWS - Making A Fictional Series

Many of you may not be watching Married At First Sight (MAFS), however apparently lots of you are. What other reason would there be for Channel Nine to introduce another dating show? During the airing of MAFS, the audience is blessed with a glimpse of something new in the works – a casting call for a new show “Modern Dating”. This got us thinking, how many dating reality shows are out there? For Channel Nine we have Beauty and the Geek, Dating Naked (we’re not kidding – it’s on 9Now), MAFS, Talking Married, Love Island, and Naked Attraction. Meanwhile, Channel 7 had First Dates and Farmer Wants a Wife. Surely that’s plenty of dating shows right? Wrong! Channel 10 joins the party with The Bachelor and The Bachelorette and now has First Dates on 10 Play.

With so many reality dating shows now on Television, how are we to know how much of the content is scripted, and how much of it is actually reality? This topic always seems to be following many reality shows but in particular, Married at First Sight.

Presently in its 7^th year on Australian Television, MAFS is the “social experiment” that follows the journey of 8 couples from their first meeting at the alter to the honeymoon and moving in together. As expected there is drama a plenty which naturally attracts the audience. As Australia watches how quickly a relationship can fail it reminds us how difficult it is to look away from a car crash and how we are drawn to the destruction … in this case of a relationship.

For those of you that aren’t keeping up (and for those of you that are), we have just finished Intimacy Week – a week in which we are trying to hide our shocked expressions while we internally question the classification of this prime-time show. Excuse me for being shocked to see a naked man doing a handstand while in the shower. Surely, he was not forced to do that. Although this is the same guy that refuses to kiss his bride in front of the camera crew as he claims that this is too intimate an act.

MAFS has a success rate of less than 7% with only 5 couples staying  together out of the 72 that have been matched over the 9 seasons. However it has been a big success for Nine despite a slow decline in the Free To Air audience. On average, MAFS is the most watched dating show, with Farmer Wants a Wife, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette following behind.  Perhaps the dating show genre is a bit like the relationships they manufacture – that is, difficult to keep going.  In 2019, MAFS reached a national average audience of 1.86 million, in 2020, 1.59 million and in 2021 it dropped to 1.42 million. Currently, the 2022 season is reaching approximately 1.31 million people each night. However this is still a great success for Nine as it is usually the 5^th highest rating program most nights it appears (behind the News programs) and is easily the highest rating program for people under 55. It’s important to keep in mind that Nine also benefits enormously from the BVOD audience which is huge for MAFS. It is the No.1 rating BVOD program and adds a huge 450,000+ audience to the nightly MAFS figures above.

The shows also produce major talkability on social media. Every night, many are battling it out to have their opinion be heard. Is this why these shows are remaining relevant despite many questioning the possibility of these shows being scripted? Among these opinions is speculation that many of the contestants are actors or at the very least, Instagram influencers, who are only on the show to boost their following. Regardless of this, we continue to watch anyway.

Reality dating shows, are they fiction or fact? We think the real question is does it matter? These shows provide us with entertainment, laughter, a great conversation starter, viable audience projections, and a slither of hope that love at first sight can work. What more could we want?

WHAT’S NEW IN MEDIA – IS SVOD LEVELLING OUT?

The advance Morgan Research figures tell us that, overall, the big five Australian streaming services (SVOD), Netflix / Binge / Stan / Disney and Amazon, have significantly slowed their viewing growth in terms of Unique Viewers (not the amount or frequency of viewing).  The growth has slowed to close to half from +24.28% a year ago to 13.52% to December 2021. This suggests a maturing in consumer demand and suggests a plateau sometime this 2022 year, especially as both these two years were largely Covid years.  WFH has been a benefit to any Media that can be consumed online but perhaps especially SVOD.

Why would we analyse this (you might ask) when Advertisers cannot buy this audience on these platforms?

Simply because viewers are just that, there are only so many minutes of video/program content the average person can consume. If SVOD is increasing,  then it is logically taking viewer minutes away from FTA TV, BVOD or from other Media.

Decades ago we made a first whole of market analysis to calculate the average adult 18+ potential media consumption time in a week. This was approximately 54 hours of media content actively or passively consumed (passive, think for example most Out Of Home). This has not varied by more than an hour, with perhaps the exception of Covid years 2020 & 2021.

Therefore a plateauing of SVOD could and should be good for FTA TV and/or BVOD, as it holds the gradual creep of SVOD audience which is quite noticeable post 9pm each night.

Albeit early in the 2022 Programming season, there are signs that more post 9pm FTA TV programs are succeeding or at least rating better than previously. The other good news for 7, 9 and 10 are their BVOD audiences have grown on average around 26%. Maybe some of this growth was from the market leader, ABC iView, who went backwards in 2021.

SVOD is in an increasingly crowded and competitive sector fighting for the consumers dollars. It now has the growth of BVOD to contend with which again puts pressure on that finite media consumption time that we all have available each week.

DIGITAL – ‘ZAP’ ... SAVES YOUR TIME & INCREASES PRODUCTIVITY!

The “Big Data” fascination really got going in 2010 and since then technology has continued to advance.  Many of the traditional large companies have that much data and data sources that it becomes a headache to manage. Linking all the data together can be a mammoth job.

One product to help manage that data overload is Zapier. It passes data between your digital platforms (Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, Google Ads, etc.) and CRM automatically, which ultimately increases your workflow, time management and accuracy. A “Zap” is how Zapier initiates this passing of data. A zap consists of:

• A trigger - every time an event happens, a Zap runs automatically. For example, any time I get a new lead on Facebook.
• An action – the task you want Zapier to do for you. It can send you an email as soon as someone fills out a lead generation form on Facebook
• Zapier can connect many popular platforms and apps such as Facebook, Google, Slack, Salesforce etc.

This enables you to automate processes without having to create the integration yourself or without hiring someone to implement this integration for you. So why is this such an important tool? In a word, efficiency. This process alone can save many hours of data entry, reporting and updating important CRM platforms. The ability to bypass any human interference is important, as human error can slow down productivity and could prove costly if something (i.e. Facebook leads) is missing. It also helps sales team to act promptly and convert leads to customers quickly. Zapier frees up more time to focus on partnerships and customer relations instead of spending too much time on various online platforms. Lastly, the creation of a zap only takes a few minutes, which is a massive time-saver in the long run and once it is on, it runs until you turn it off so there is no ongoing maintenance for every Zap you create.

Zapier offers a free version but has plans starting at $28 AUD a month and more, depending on how many Zaps you need to set up.  If you want further information about ‘being zapped’, please email Luke at lbrann@pearman.com.au

SMI UPDATE – JANUARY 2022

Advertising spend through Australia’s Media Agencies continues the strong growth pattern from last year. The January spend of $555.6 million is 15.4% up Jan’21 and is still +5.1% ahead of the pre-Covid January 2019 total. The Jul21-Jan22 period is 16.1% up year on year and has for the first time the surpassed $5 billion mark. This is a great start as 2021 was up 6.8% on 2019 and we’ve started 2022 with a large increase on 2021. However, it should be noted Jan22 had the Australian Open in it while in 2021 the AO was in February.

It feels like a broken record, but the Government spend has once again supported much of the growth. It accounts for 23% of the additional spend and the Government increased its year-on-year January spend by 51%, spending $51m in Jan’22. It is a safe bet that these increases will continue until April’22.  Other categories to increase by +30% were Insurance, Home Furnishing/Appliances and Communications.  Automotive was the disappointment for the month as its spend declined -18.2% compared to Jan’21. Healthcare was another category that reduced spend substantially spending $11million less that last January.

Television and Digital were again the star performers of the month.  Television increased 18.9% and this can be expected to continue throughout February and March.  Trying to buy advertising space on TV any time soon is a very difficult task.  Digital increased by 18.7% with Social Media reporting the strongest growth of any Digital sector. Outdoor continued to get ‘back to normal’ Cinema had a good start to the year with an 81.1% increase although it was off a small base.  January 2022 was a little disappointing for Radio (-0.1%), Newspapers (-8.6%) and Magazines (-6.5%) as they all had reduced spend.  The Newspapers and Magazines SMI data now includes their digital spends within the Medium.

FAST FACTS

1. The average cost of a 30sec TVC in the Super Bowl was around $8.9million AUD
2. Australia has recorded 5,200+ deaths from COVID-19 since the pandemic began however, it is estimated that the nation has recorded 12,881 fewer deaths from all causes over the last two years than would normally have occurred.
3. The average cost of a 30sec TVC in the Super Bowl was around $8.9million AUD
4. In 2021, Australia was ranked the 12^th happiest country in the world, New Zealand came in at No.9. Finland was No.1 for the fourth year in a row.
5. The ABS Retail sales figures for January 2022 are up 5.84%
6. Readership for Taste Magazine is up +48.4% in the last year

by Harshit Ahuja

What Will Be The 2022 Revenue Market - February 2022

SWIRLING WINDS OF CHANGE – WHAT WILL BE THE 2022 REVENUE MARKET?

This month, Steve Allen gives his forecasts for media spend in 2022. Steve is certainly well placed to make forecasts as he has been doing it for 30+ years.

Here goes… a month or so ago, it seemed smooth sailing might be the case in 2022, for the Economy and for Media Marketing. But unfortunately … no longer.

In that small space in time all kinds of headwinds have formed.

• first we had the Omicron outbreak, and its fast spreading nature
• then the flow on supply chain disruptions
• the RAT test debacle
• the Supermarket & retail supply and shortage issues
• the outbreak of inflation
• the Consumer confidence read
• Business confidence fell sharply in December
• now an apparent major share market correction seemingly occurring

We think the poor consumer confidence read in mid January, was the result of an unusual convergence of factors, unlikely to be sustainably repeated. More than anything, we think the Consumer is just tired and frustrated with the uncertainty and restrictions Covid has placed upon us. This, we believe will continue to weigh on consumer confidence, however we also see skittishness in the coming weeks, not a sustained or increasing fall. Our read of consumer confidence is that it is presently quite reactive, therefore volatile, rather than spiralling down into a morass of negativity.

This makes forecasting for 2022 Media Markets more hazardous than ever.

Never-the-less we developed and modelled where we believe the 2022 market will pan out at the beginning of Q4 2021. We forecast then an overall growth in Media Marketing dollars of 7.25% to total A$20.26b

Factoring in the headwinds, we now believe the market will only grow by 6.0% to total $20b. This is remarkable, a far more rapid recovery than expected in 2021 and continuing in 2022. This places 2022 all but 20% ahead of the last covid free year of 2019.

Below is the total spend (inc. all Digital and more than just media agencies) that is spent on advertising for the past 5 years.

All of this forecast 2022 growth is pretty much within Internet (other Mediums, some up some down, a mix)

Over the past few days, some commentators are taking a much more bearish view, suggesting or inferring, the wheels might fall of both the economy, and flow on to Marketing. The fear is Central Banks reaction to inflation (raising interest rates to stem inflation outbreak, and then the flow on effect to Mortgages & debt, restricting consumers spending, and ultimately the mood and confidence, leading to a downwards spiral).

We do not believe Australia is facing such a precipice. We believe the fundamentals of the Economy are sound and not likely to dramatically deteriorate. Hence our modest adjustment to our 2022 forecast, most of which is likely to be experienced in Q1 2022.

Most of the Media Agency market is measured by SMI (Standard Media Index) and this also gives us a feel for forward bookings. Media pacing (as it is called),  shows a very similar pattern to non-Covid years, plus many Marketers are planning around the expected Australian Government election, forecast for May. Thus whilst we are cautious, we are cautiously optimistic!

Most media will grow in 2022 on 2021… some still making up lost ground; Radio, Outdoor, Cinema, &  Magazines. Internet will continue to both dominate and distort as it is forecast by us to comprise over 65% of the Media Market.

Footnote: There is no truth in the rumour that the World’s Annual Psychic conference has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances!

WHAT’S NEW IN MEDIA – RADIO AUDIENCE MEASUREMENT

The Radio industry is changing the way they measure their audience and have launched a hybrid audience measurement called Radio 360. This will oversee a transition from paper surveys to the majority use of e-diaries and integrate live streaming data to provide more information on the size and profile of audiences listening across digital platforms.

For 70+ years, Radio audience measurement has been reliant on people filling out a manual diary where respondents (over 10yrs old) tick boxes for every 15 minutes of the day for a 7 day period, so long as they have listened for 8 of the 15 minutes.  This is a fairly cumbersome way of getting ratings both from the respondents completing it and the researchers (GFK) who have to find people and then collect the results.  There is an annual sample size of around 60,000 surveys.

Covid has driven the digital measurement and hastened the new hybrid measurement system – Radio 360.  At the end of 2021, 50% of the surveys were e-diaries and by mid this year the majority is expected to be ‘e-diaries’. In essence there is not a lot of data difference between a paper diary and an e-diary except one uses a keyboard. There will also be an additional 2,000 people with ‘wearable meters’ (think watch). These watch-like devices will pick up listening on all devices but not if people are using headphones. The wearable meters will be a sense check and provide validation against the e-diaries which still rely on people remembering what they listened to and for how long. Down the track the wearable meters could also be used as a qualitative platform for particular research projects.

The most exciting aspect of future Radio measurement is the capture of streaming data. This will deliver far richer and deeper audience insights and is expected to be released as a sub-set of data alongside the usual 8 surveys a year.  The first streaming data measurement is expected around July 2022.  This will help bring Radio into the realm of how a great deal of today’s media is bought based on a cost per thousand delivery based on a particular data set.

The latest SMI data shows Digital Radio ad revenue growing by 44% and 37% over the last two years and accounting for 8% of total revenue. Clearly it is becoming more important for the Radio industry to measure all forms of digital listening for music, talk and podcasts and across all devices.

DIGITAL – PARADISE BY THE DIGITAL DASHBOARD

‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light’ may be an epic 1977 seduction song by Meatloaf however, 45 years later in 2022 there is an even a better way to get excited by Dashboards. It’s the Digital Dashboards that really can deliver paradise by shining light on your digital campaigns.

When it comes to delivering real-time and accurate digital results to a client, it is impossible to trump a well organised and well customised dashboard because let’s face it, it’s more engaging than looking at another Excel spreadsheet pivot table!  A dashboard is a tool that can collect and organise data from multiple different sources such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google ads, and shows a campaign’s performance all in one place, making it easier to compare data from any time period, and can be accessed on most devices, such as a computers or a mobile phones.

The dashboard allows a client to make important decisions on the fly, as they can see results in real-time, and having the ability to check these results at any given time gives all parties a clear path to optimise the campaign moving forward without any extra time spent on campaign updates.  The biggest positive of using a tool like this is the ability to customise and constantly update metrics, charts, or graphs to the client’s preference, making sure all KPI’s are represented and nothing is hidden. Above all, it offers transparency, which ensures the work being done is always being held accountable. There is no doubt a dashboard delivers that extra peace of mind and allows you to “sleep on it” (you may need to listen to the song).

SMI UPDATE – JAN-DEC 2021

The ad market’s 2021 ad spend of $8.6 billion is +$1.6bn on 2020 and +$550m on 2019. It was expected that the 2021 year would have much greater advertising spend than the heavily impacted Covid year of 2020.  It was up 23.9%, however, what is a surprise is that the 2021 spend was even up +6.8% on the 2019 figures. In the last 10 years the media agency spend (measured by SMI) has tended to increase by around 2% per annum. So 2021 has definitely been a healthy year for ad spend. The year ended with the December bookings of $710 million being 7.1% up on last year’s December.

The Government category roared up the expenditure charts to become the second largest category for 2021 with a massive 106% increase on 2020. Government spent $614 million which was still $34 million more than their combined spend of 2019 and 2020. The biggest category of Retail was only up 1.7% however it also did not have a huge fall in 2020 spend as many of the other top 10 categories had. Auto was disappointing with a 2.4% increase on 2020 as it was still -28.5% on its 2019 spend.  The Insurance category was the fourth highest category with an impressive 23.4% increase on 2020 and well up on 2019 spends. The Travel category increased spend by 40.5% in 2021 but was still understandably down 35% ($155 million) on 2019.

All media had increased ad spend in 2021 compared to 2020 albeit at varying levels of increase.  Television and Digital make up close to 75% of all SMI spend and they both received more than their 2019 ad spend.  Digital was the star performer and was up 35.4% on 2020 while Television was up 19% on 2020. Outdoor was up 26.8%, Radio up 18.9%, Newspapers +2.5%, Magazines +4.2% and Cinema was up 61.3% although still 46% down on 2019.

FAST FACTS

1. The 2022 AO Women’s final delivered a national audience peak of 4.3m making it one of the most popular sporting moments of the last 20 years
2. I n FY21, immigration to Australia fell 71% to 145,800 from 506,900 arrivals in FY20
3. Elvis had an identical twin brother who died at birth
4. Australians spend an average of $2,776 per year via e-commerce, well above the global average of $1,435 (Hootsuite study)
5. Australia has the world's longest golf course – the Nullarbor Links at 850 miles
6. An Uber delivered large Cappuccino costs $8 – for those in ISO

by Harshit Ahuja