Australian advertisers continue flight to digital
Data privacy scandals and brand safety concerns aren’t doing anything to dent predictions of a bumper year for Australian digital advertising revenue.
In 2018, internet advertising is tipped to reach $8.69 billion and take up 54 per cent of the ad market.
Advertisers continue flocking to major digital outlets.
This is up from 51 per cent in 2017, Zenith Advertising Expenditure Forecasts report for 2018 shows, with an additional $600 million flowing into online coffers since 2017.
Globally, online advertising will surpass 40 per cent of market share for the first time.
The total advertising spend expected for Australia has increased by 2.6 per cent to $16 billion, but there are sharp declines expected in some sectors.
Newspaper revenue was expected to drop from $1.29 billion in 2017 to $1.13 billion in 2018, with magazines also showing a sharp decline from $377 million to $314 million.
An inquiry about the digital platforms' impact on diverting advertising revenue away from traditional publishers is currently underway.
Advertising on television is likely to pull back slightly, from $3.77 billion in 2017 to $3.76 billion in 2018, while cinema will stay stable at $121 million.
There was “marginal growth” in metropolitan TV revenues during the Christmas retail period, Zenith Australia chief executive Nickie Scriven said in a statement. Automotive and retail brands were driving the growth.
Nine Entertainment Co chief executive Hugh Marks recently said big-name brands had come back to free-to-air television and away from social media and digital video platforms, saying they didn’t deliver value.
Media buyers also warned of concerns among clients about ‘brand safe’ environments in the fake news era, where they knew their advertisements would be next to content that was consistent with their messaging.
For radio, advertising revenue was forecast to increase from $1.15 million to $1.17 billion.
Analysts have described radio as a more resilient media to disrupt in the digital era, given the prevalence of aged vehicles with older radios on the road. Radio companies have started moving into podcasting.
A 2018 Starcom Media Futures report found a third of marketers considered social media marketing one of the biggest opportunities in 2018.
A survey of consumers for the report found real life experiences, such as catalogues, watching people around them, events at public places, conversations, and in-store or branch experiences were more effective than apps, newspapers, radio, email, sponsorship or social media.
Online, broadly, was considered a high-impact experience.