Australia will see its ad market growing at 5% to $23bn in 2023, with double-digit growth forecast among online video/OTT, cinema, and online audio, according to WARC media ad spend forecasts.
Welcoming the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup this summer along with New Zealand, Australia will see its out-of-home (OOH) market grow a considerable amount to $1.07bn, surpassing pre-pandemic spend levels. 70% of OOH ad spend will go to digital out-of-home (DOOH) as the latter is forecast to grow at 14%. The CEO of the Outdoor Media Association (OMA) – Australia’s OOH industry body – said in its latest 2022 annual report that OMA will further advance into “programmatic and automation this year” after realising the power of real-time DOOH.
Search is set to grow at 8% to $6.8bn, continuing its position as the biggest channel in Australia. Much anticipation has gone into this space worldwide, as AI capacity such as ChatGPT – or its latest version, GPT-4 – brings challenges as well as opportunities for traditional search companies like Microsoft and Google.
Linear TV is forecast to decrease by 2% at $4.1bn, despite significant TV opportunities such as the broadcasting of the World Cup. Australia’s light TV viewers receive just 5% of linear TV ad impressions, although light viewers make up 45% of households.
Cinema (+28%), online audio (+16%), and online video/OTT (22%) are forecast to see increasing ad investment. However, a recent report from Mi3 showed that Netflix’s ad tier is only being slowly accepted in Australia: the take-up of Netflix’s newly launched ad-tier subscription was over 50% lower than initially projected.
Deloitte’s 2022 consumer survey revealed that 64% of Australian consumers are concerned about the cost of multiple subscriptions. Among 18-34-year-old Aussies, 57% are cutting subscriptions and memberships, up from 44% last August.
