The Australian advertising market is showing signs of recovery, according to data from Guideline SMI's September report, indicating a slight improvement in total bookings, down 1.5% from the record spend reported in September 2023.

But the local ad market is still pacing well behind the UK and US advertising sectors in growth terms this year.

OOH media saw a 15.8& increase in September bookings, taking its total market share to a record level of 16%. SMI data shows OOH is taking share from digital and TV.

"It’s clear many product categories are moving their media investments from both Digital and Television to Outdoor as we’re seeing large category share swings," said Jane Ractliffe Guideline SMI APAC Managing Director. "For example, the Food category has grown its Outdoor investment by 46% this month while the Banking category has lifted its Outdoor spend by 46.2%."

The shift towards Outdoor media is not limited to Australia. The trend is being mirrored in New Zealand, where Outdoor ad spend is up 16% this month, reaching a record share of 19% of all NZ September agency ad spend.

Interestingly, the In-Home Entertainment category, which mostly comprises ad spend by TV Streaming brands, has also seen a shift. "It’s also evident in the In-Home Entertainment category as the Streamers have typically allocated more than 70% of their ad budgets to TV and Digital, but this month Outdoor’s share of TV Streaming ad spend has grown to 34% from 18% in September 2023,’’ Ractliffe said.

Despite the overall improvement, not all sectors are faring well. Digital ad spend was up just 0.3% overall, Cinema showed a decline of 1%, and both linear TV and Radio benefited from higher digital bookings with the digital video up 21.2 per cent and digital audio up 32.6 per cent.

The strongest growth in ad demand came from the Banking product category (+13.9% driven by growth in sponsorship investments), Government ad spend (+13.9%), and Toiletries/Cosmetics (+18.3%) as bookings from both Skin and Oral Care advertisers doubled.

"The reality is that the market remains very short, so we’ve continued to receive extra late bookings for previous months and that’s resulted in total spend over the nine months being back by less than $10 million in a $6 billion-plus market,’’ Ractliffe said.

"And with the momentum now evident in key parts of the Australian ad market, we remain confident that we’ll be reporting advertising market growth for the full 2024 calendar year.’’