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be one of the media channels to struggle the most in its recovery, with Justine Butler at Media Merchants saying that unless publishers dramat- ically change their tactics they won’t ever reach pre-pandemic levels.
The payments from Google and Facebook will be a reprieve as media buyers expect publishing to be one of the media channels to struggle more in the recovery, with Justine Butler at Media Merchants saying that unless they dramatically change their tactics they won’t ever reach pre-pandemic levels.
“I’m sad to say I believe print and cinema will continue to fight an uphill battle,” she says. “It never helps when there are mass closures of regional titles and most audiences have now well and truly moved to online formats which offer news and entertainment at speed and scale.”
Philippa Noilea-Tani, national head of investment at Wavemaker, also thinks print is unlikely to return to pre-COVID-19 levels.
“However, it’s critical to understand that audiences have not dis- appeared, they have shifted,” she says. “The importance of newswor- thy content and quality journalism from trusted sources has never been greater, for both consumers and brands, and it remains an effec- tive channel. Publishers, not channels, who can demonstrably prove return on investment (ROI) will win.”
During the pandemic, Butler says that print, OOH and cinema likely lost money to TV and digital.
“Categories such as retail, gambling and FMCG are feeding growth in spends, but money is also being shifted from more niche areas of OOH, print and cinema into the likes of TV and digital,” she says.
“Growth in spend is from advertisers stimulating spending, so until people start spending again on holidays, travel and leisure, and
interest rates remain low, this should continue.”
Looking ahead, general man- ager of investment at IPG Mediabrands’ Magna Nick Durrant says clients are still focusing on media that can drive immediate sales uplift and then looking at building out more tra- ditional branding media.
“Advertising dollars are likely to mirror audience changes as this is where there is greatest impact,” he tells AdNews. “However, we are also seeing more investment into the market as a whole, indeed within Mediabrands we can already see more investment than we did in 2019.”
He adds it’s hard to compare different media sectors as competitors.
“The roles they play within indi- vidual media plans are very differ- ent. Search is not substitutable with BVOD, for instance,” he says. “Obviously one area they compete is digital video but this is also an area growing rapidly so it is difficult to say one is winning. However, a key area of strength with local play- ers is their ability to work collabo- ratively and nimbly with agency partners as they are not beholden to global roadmaps. It is evident this is likely to be revenue positive in the short to medium term.”
As Australia continues to handle the pandemic with relative success, and the
rollout of the vaccine is under- way, the positive impact this will have on traditional media
spend is highly anticipated.
“The economic indicators show Australians’ disposable incomes have risen, in some cases quite sharply, during the past 12
months,” says Durrant.
“There are strong arguments
for any category that is not directly impacted by current restrictions to increase their investment in advertising. We will undoubtedly still see some
depressed categories, for exam- ple, tourism. However, they are few and the current demand in the market would indicate the recovery is general in nature rather than
                                   limited.”
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