Standard Media Index, is implementing a series of new features to ensure its clients and media Agency partners have access to more and faster information on the impact of COVID 19 on our advertising markets.

SMI’s AU/NZ Managing Director Jane Ractliffe said she is already fielding queries on the potential impact of the virus on advertising demand – particularly among key product categories - and in this time of uncertainty SMI wants to do more than ever to ensure an informed market.

SMI’s new initiatives include:

• Special Ad Demand Updates. A new newsletter providing earlier insights into advertising demand in the Australian market, and for the first time also updating the market on how COVID 19 is also impacting ad demand in NZ, the US and UK. And from mid-May SMI will be releasing its first Canadian database (including ad payment data from all multinational media Agencies) so from then the Updates will also include Canadian ad spend trends.
• Future Pacing data to be released earlier to media clients. SMI tracks future advertising demand across all product categories by collecting confirmed ad spend for the future 3 months. This will now be provided to media clients as soon as it arrives, rather than waiting to be included in the SMI Reports.
• Future Pacings History: SMI will have been collecting Future Pacings data in Australia for a year from April. This means media clients will have reliable historic data from which to determine the degree to which each Category’s future demand has changed compared to future demand levels seen last year
• Special Commentary: All SMI reports to now include extra detail on how product categories are being impacted by COVID 19
• SMI has released extra Digital ad spend insights to our media Agency partners, so they can provide their clients category ad spend detail for all Digital sectors for the first time. This includes Category ad demand intel on the Search, Programmatic, Social Media, Video Sites and Content Sites sectors