Canadian ad market up 83% in May, says SMI
TORONTO — After suffering a 51% decline in 2020 compared to 2019, Canadian advertising revenue grew 83% in May 2021 compared to May 2020, according to new data from Standard Media Index (SMI) released Monday.
However, while traditional media ad spend has almost doubled (up 97%) in May 2021 vs. May 2020, it has not yet rebounded to 2019 levels. Compared to 2019, traditional media ad revenue is still down 24%, says SMI’s report. Digital continues to see year-over-year increases for the tenth month in a row, up 72% compared to last year, and up 7% compared to 2019.
Digital also continues to account for the majority of Canadian ad spend in May 2021 (53%) compared to traditional media (47%), according to SMI’s report.
Looking at the various traditional media segments, TV advertising is up 93% year-over-year, while radio ad revenue grew 178% in May 2021 compared to May 2020, and out-of-home advertising jumped 136% compared to a year ago. In its report, SMI’s managing director, Darrick Li, explains the dramatic YOY increases in radio and OOH advertising are “due to the low investment levels these channels experienced in 2020,” reads the report.
“While traditional media investment has almost doubled this month… it has not yet rebounded to 2019 levels,” Li continued. “TV is down 11% vs. May 2019, but the declines vs 2019 are mostly driven by out of home (-66%) and radio (-51%) which continue to be affected by lockdowns in major Canadian markets.”
The company also breaks down ad spend by market segment, below.
This month also marks SMI’s first anniversary doing business in Canada (we first reported on the company here). The ad intelligence company also announced today it has recently signed some new clients, including Corus Entertainment, Postmedia, TheScore and marketing intelligence company MiQ.
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 to buy not just a 30-second spot in prime time, but on which show, and which of 35 product and service categories are making those buys.
“SMI gives us the ability to understand ad spending and revenue trends across TV, radio, and digital, allowing us to benchmark our own performance and identify opportunities,” said Greg McLelland, EVP and chief revenue officer at Corus, in the release.
