Australia's advertising market is showing signs of divergence from its global counterparts, with soft demand and a 5.6% year-on-year decrease in total ad investment for April 2024, according to the latest results from Guideline SMI.

The results contrast with strong growth reported in similar markets such as the US, UK, and Canada.

The soft demand has impacted all major media, but when digital revenues are factored in, News Media reported a modest growth of 1.8%. The decline for TV and Radio was more pronounced when digital revenues were included.

Outdoor and Digital sectors showed lower than market declines with their spend down 1.5% and 2.4% respectively. Total video was down 9%, total audio was down 5.7% and magazines took one of the biggest hits, declining by 25.3%. Cinema was the worst performer, down 35.6%.

"Australian ad demand is very much out of synch with similar sophisticated ad markets as in the US in April we reported growth in ad demand of 9.5% YOY, in the UK the growth was 3.8% and in Canada it was 7.2%," said Jane Ractliffe, Guideline SMI APAC Managing Director.

Ractliffe noted some strong growth among large categories this month with the Auto Brand market continuing to return to pre-COVID levels with growth of 10.4% in April. A big growth area meanwhile was the toiletries/Cosmetics category, which grew ad spend an astonishing 21%.

However, other smaller product categories were responsible for most of the decline, with the 10 largest product categories collectively reducing ad spend by only 2.6%. The Travel category saw a 15% year-on-year drop in ad spend in April, while Gambling and Restaurant ad spend fell by 19.6% and 13.6% respectively, largely due to a 64% fall in revenue from the Food Delivery subcategory.

"We're also seeing the cost-of-living issues impacting ad demand as Travel category ad spend has fallen 15% YOY in April; Gambling ad spend is back 19.6% and Restaurant ad spend is back 13.6% all due to a 64% fall in revenue from the Food Delivery subcategory," Ractliffe explained.

Despite the overall softness in the market, the level of programmatic and social media bookings has continued to grow significantly since the last data release.

"As the market is so short it's taking longer for some ad spend to come through, and that's especially the case for Digital media as we're now seeing that for March the level of programmatic and social media bookings has continued to grow significantly since the last data release," Ractliffe said.