What you need to know:

• SMI has released its December update and its 2021 calendar year analysis.
• Ad spend with agencies reached new heights: $8.6 billion, up $1.6bn on 2020.

The 2021 calendar year was the biggest for Australian ad spend in history, reaching $8.6 billion despite months of lockdowns in Sydney and Melbourne, new data shows.

Standard Media Index figures show brands spent $323.5 million more last year than in 2018, the previous record-holding year, and $1.6bn – 23.9 per cent – more than in 2020.  

“Given advertising expenditure is so strongly correlated to GDP, this SMI data provides a very strong indication that the broader Australian economy is moving well beyond the original COVID downturn and has instead learned to function extremely effectively in the new COVID era,” SMI AU/NZ Managing Director Jane Ractliffe said.

Ad spend is higher now than 2019 in 14 of the 20 largest product categories recorded by SMI, including:

• Communications is up 47 per cent on 2019.
• Alcoholic Beverages is up 52 per cent on 2019
• Food/Produce is up 25 per cent on 2019.
• Technology spend is up 59 per cent.

“This all underscores the fact that the level of confidence in today’s market is at unprecedented levels,” Ractliffe said.

Digital media accounts for 38.6 per cent of all agency spend, a 3.2 per cent increase, while Outdoor and Cinema both grew their share of the market by fractions of a percent.

Early data for January shows a strong level of ad spend, driven by Television and the Australian Open.