By Rick Bruner, Head of Research, Standard Media Index
Ad spend in October, November and December 2021 is likely to increase by double-digits YOY, advancing further the gains that the ad industry had made at the end of last year as it recovered from the Spring of 2020.
The forecast by Standard Media Index, which pools planning and invoicing records from major holding companies and major independents, is based on “forward booking” commitments that agencies make with media publishers in advance.
The analysis in SMI’s Pacing Report sees TV making modest gains over last Q4 with growth particularly in the local TV market. Radio appears to gain strength late in the season, compared to last year, and Outdoor is forecast to have greater than 50% growth. Digital media, meanwhile, including video, audio, programmatic, search and social, appears set to grow on the order of 20-50% respectively by channel.
NOTE – ADVERTISING SPEND IN $U.S., ALL MEDIA WITHIN THE SMI POOL EACH MONTH IS SCALED TO YEAR-AGO IN-MARKET
Source: Standard Media Index. SMI Core Data captures the actual spend data from the SMI Pool partners of major holding companies and large independent agencies, representing up to 95% of all US national brand ad spending, to provide a complete monthly view of the SMI Pool market size, investment share and category performance. Core Data delivers detailed ad intelligence across all media types, including Television, OTT, Digital, Out of Home, Print, and Radio.
Of particular interest in Q4 is the Toy & Games category, which spends 60% of its annual ad budget in the last three months of the year.
Historically, the category advertised to a 75%+ media mix into cartoons shown on television. That includes branded TV shows (e.g., Transformers).
From 1990 to 2010 this ad spend saw a media mix shift from broadcast network and nationally syndicated cartoons to cable kids’ TV networks.However, says SMI, with Digital-first Millennials now the parents of most children, Linear Video is no longer as dominant with this age cohort. Now spend is shifting in the quarter away from TV.
While cable TV networks had peaked at 65% or more of the media mix roughly a decade ago, according to SMI between 2017 and 2019 Cable Kids’ networks accounted for just 40% of Toys & Games as spend. In 2020, that dropped to 31%. Digital, across all platforms and publisher types, hit 47% of the media mix last year, an 8%-point jump from the average of 2017-19.
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