Higher than March 2019, too
TORONTO – According to ad intelligence data company Standard Media Index, advertising spending across all platforms jumped 20% in March 2021 in Canada, as compared to March 2020, which of course was the first month of the Covid-19 pandemic, where spending then dropped 16%, compared to the same month of 2019.
However, ad spending in March 2021 was also 1% higher than March 2019, suggesting normal spending had returned – at least in that month where the third Covid wave had not yet fully hit the country as it is now.
Digital spending continued to lead the growth, which was up 54% in March 2021 versus last March.
TV also had a very strong month, with an 11% increase in ad spending over March 2020 (which was down 10% over March 2019)
That lifted the March 2021 TV investment to near pre-pandemic levels (only -1% vs 2019).
SMI accesses real invoices from the world’s biggest buyers of media (across all platforms), anonymizes and organizes that very large dataset in order to create a clear, granular database where its clients can see what was spent and which of 35 product and service categories are making those buys. It only captures national ad buys and not local.
Please see below for more.
