Getting The Green Light - June 2022
JUNE 2022
GETTING THE GREEN LIGHT
One could argue that the most important and effective brand message across all media platforms in the past year has been “We are sustainable and we care about climate change”. There is no doubt that climate change has increasingly become a front of mind issue for the Australian public, especially given the prevalence of major disastrous weather events across the country over the past few years. Google’s Year in Search 2021 stated that the terms “sustainability” and “impact of climate” were searched more than ever before.
One need only look at the most recent election results in which Labor’s successful campaign (or Liberal’s loss) addressed climate action. All Parties who had positive and progressive green policies, particularly Climate change were successful. The “ Teal Independents”, borne out of the Climate 200 conference, won 10 seats across the country and the Greens picked up an additional 3 seats. What used to be treated as a secondary concern for a lot of people has quickly become the deciding factor in who they vote for. Roy Morgan found the biggest issue that sunk the Morrison Government was their failure to articulate a clear (& believable) Climate policy. This was followed by their failure to pass legislation for a Corruption Commission and their response to concerns that women were expressing.
Australia’s largest brands and media providers have jumped on this trend early and have already begun to build their entire branding around wanting to be perceived as sustainable. Both Woolworths and Suncorp Bank’s latest campaigns have leaned heavily into climate change imagery and have rebranded themselves as the “green” options in their respective fields, with both brands making commitments to using 100% renewable electricity in their operations and stores by 2025. VB even went a step further, launching the “Solar Exchange” in which it allowed customers to exchange $30 of excess solar energy for a slab of its beer.
Conversely, companies who are seen to be harming the environment are experiencing swift backlash. AGL has long been criticized for being among the worst polluters in Australia and when they invited Agencies to pitch for the business in May, Greenpeace issued a statement warning the media that “Ad agencies who work with AGL are complicit in rolling the turd in glitter” and that they “will face increasing reputational pressure if they align with this company.”
Advertisers understand that the modern consumer will actively choose brands who are seen to take stands on social issues and according to the 2021 Meaningful Brands Study, more than half of consumers are willing to pay more for a brand that takes a stand. This sentiment was echoed in Nine’s State of the Nation presentation on sustainability in which they stated that nearly three quarters of Australians say that the benefits of taking further action on climate change will outweigh the costs.
Going forward, expect brands and media companies to become even more outspoken about their sustainability efforts and for it to become a part of almost all brands identities. Whilst there remains the legitimate concern of “greenwashing” by larger corporations, Australian’s will continue to back trusted brands who are seen to be legitimately taking a stand on the issues of sustainability and climate change.
WHAT’S NEW IN MEDIA – MAGAZINES MAKING A COMEBACK?
Magazines had the roughest time of all media in 2020 with their advertising revenue declining -43%. This was 20% larger than Outdoors’ decline (-36%) and 87% larger than Newspapers’ 2020 decline of -23%. Bauer Media (now ‘Are Media’) closed 8 magazines - Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Men's Health, Women's Health, InStyle, Good Health, NW and OK. Many of these magazines had expensive global licenses attached to them which would have contributed to their demise. Even though it seems there was consumer demand for the 8 deleted magazines (they were read by around 1.2 million people), clearly, they were not able to be profitable. The cancelled or suspended titles made up around $10million of the initial $40+million drop in ad revenue. The habitual habit of purchasing at Newsstands was also severely disrupted during 2020 and has not returned to previous levels and is unlikely it ever will.
There are however quite a few signs of life in the Magazine marketplace and around half of the Internationals have now returned in one way or another, via independent Publishers - Harpers Bazaar, InStyle, Women’s Health & Men’s Health to name some. SMI data shows advertising in printed Magazines for Jan-Mar’22 has increased 4.3% compared to the same time last year. This has been driven by Travel, Clothing, Automotive and Fashion clients. However, Apr’22 SMI has not been a good month for Mags.
Readership has remained relatively stable with Morgan Readership data to March 21 showing the top 35 paid cover titles (excluding those cancelled or paused) increasing gross average issue readership marginally by 0.95%. There was a small drop to March 22 to finish a two-year trend at -0.23%. Some sub-categories had solid increases such as titles covering Homes & Gardens, Food and Automotive.
So what are you waiting for? Stop looking at Facebook, buy a coffee, get a magazine and escape for an hour or two.
DIGITAL – TIPS FOR DIGITAL CREATIVE
Tip 1: Test & learn
Testing creative formats means trialing the effectiveness of ‘Video’, ‘Static images’ or ‘Carousel’ ad formats. No matter what stage of the marketing funnel (awareness, consideration, conversion) you’re advertising is in, the creative should be tailored to the type of campaign you are running. If you are running an awareness campaign, educating your audience and creating demand are the most important things to keep in mind when selecting an ad type. Video ads work well to create awareness, as they can educate the audience in a short space of time. For conversions, a single image or GIF creative with a call-to-action help inspire the audience to purchase. However, a test & learn approach is recommended as there are no guarantees as to which creative will work best.
Tip 2: Be careful in refreshing creative
Each time Facebook gets an ad there are three distinct phases. 1. Review - where Facebook checks your creative adheres to their guidelines 2. Learning - algorithms are determining what works best for your objectives 3. Active – the ad is running at peak ability. Making any changes to an ad or who you are targeting will put whatever you’ve changed into the “Review / Learning phase” which potentially puts the Active phase back hours or days. It is important to make sure that you’re not changing creatives too often as it can slow the results down. You should however have a different message for prospecting compared to retargeting.
Tip 3: Creative design tips
When it comes to creating ads, it is important to consider how well the ad will blend into your organic posting. If it feels similar to your brand’s style and voice, it will come across as more authentic. Include ads with minimal text on the creative itself, as Facebook suggests that images with less than 20% text perform better. With Video ads, ideally use a horizontal video with a square format, coloured background, large headline, and subtitles below the video. A square canvas will take up the optimal space on the Facebook feed, particularly when viewed on a mobile. Usually, the shorter the better for Video ads (maximum 30 seconds)
SMI UPDATE – APRIL 2022
Australia’s media Agency market has reported its 16th consecutive month of growth in April, with the value of total media investment lifting 5.5% to $639.0 million to also ensure a record level of bookings for the first four months of 2022. There’s also a record level of ad spend being reported for the ten months of the financial year, with the market moving beyond $7 billion for the first time in this period after growing total media investment by 13.7% to $7.02 billion.
April 22 is probably the last month (for the next couple of years) that ‘Government’ spend will feature so prominently, it was up 83.5% to $53.8 mil. Without Government spend the ad market would not look as strong however it was pleasing to see Retail with a solid 10.7% growth in spend in April. Retail is the largest SMI category making up 11% of the total ad market and this month was its largest increase for the past 9 months. Automotive is the 2nd largest category and was again down -11% in April. The last increase Auto had was in August’21. Once Auto recovers it will replace the hole (along with Retail) that will presumably occur with the reduction of Government spending. The odds of the ‘Gambling’ category increasing look good as the past two months has seen a +5% (Mar’22) and +11.9% (Apr’22).
Outdoor had a strong month with a 16.7% increase vs Apr21. Cinema had a huge increase of 126.9% albeit from a low base in Apr21. Newspapers also had a good month, presumably due to the election, with a +9.1% increase across print and digital. Television was static and Digital increased 9.3%. Radio increased +7.5% including their Digital spend. Magazines did not have a great month and were down -21.6% across their printed and digital versions.
FAST FACTS
1. We celebrate the Queens Birthday in June – her real birthday is 21st April
2. People visiting Cinema is up +76.6% (Morgan Mar’22, qtr vs qtr)
3. Pigs do not sweat so the phrase ‘sweats like a pig’ is incorrect
4. The Great Ocean Road is the world’s largest war memorial
5. Recent droughts in Europe were the worst in 2,100 years
6. Australia’s Electoral Act doesn't actually require truth in electoral advertising – eg. Clive’s 3% interest rate cap.
