‘There has never been a better time to be in media, advertising’: Nine head weighs in on when ‘challenging’ market will turn
The Australian media and marketing industry is reeling from challenges like budget cuts and staff redundancies, but one of Nine’s top figures believes the market is close to turning around.
Appearing on the latest episode of Mumbrella’s one-on-one series, the media giant’s chief sales officer, Michael Stephenson, believes there is reason for the industry to be optimistic.
“There has never been a better time to be in media. There’s never a better time to be in advertising. And there’s never been a better time to do that in Australia,” Stephenson told host Neil Griffiths.
“When I reflect back over the last 12 months, and I get asked this a lot is: ‘When’s the market going to return? The reality is in the last 12 months, the most challenging of economic times where consumer and business confidence has been low, but the ad market only declined by 1.6 per cent in FY 24. So, advertising continues to prove that it’s incredibly resilient.”
Stephenson advocated for Nine’s unique portfolio of assets, which includes a combination of radio (streaming and podcast), total publishing (print and digital), or total television (live broadcast, live streaming, and on-demand). However, amidst the modest spending decline, there are some interesting themes in the mix of marketing spending.
“And the reason that market’s been challenging is well documented certainly through the work that you’re seeing through the market mix modelling data; that in an attempt for brands to generate short term sales and outcomes. They are quickly gravitating and accelerating towards the bottom of the funnel… it’s becoming congested,” he said.
“The return on investment is decreasing, and the cost to do that is increasing.
“So, I do think everything normalises and I think that we’ll see that into the second half of next year. I think you start to see some of that rebalance.”
Listen to the full podcast here.
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There’s optimism and then there is toxic positivity…
I think most of those 200-250 staff laid off this year will not share the same optimism
Never been a better time? This guy is off his rocker.
I reckon the time when we were all making a lot of money easily and then going to lunch was better than today, but that’s just me.