What Australia’s Advertisers Need to Know this Holiday Season

Advertisers are ramping up for the holiday season – one of the busiest times of the year packed with a summer of sports, holiday content and more. 

This period is filled with fierce competition for supply and capturing audiences’ attention – and despite rising inflation and a looming recession, consumers are still opening their wallets. 

We sat down with Luke Smith, head of programmatic sales & audiences at Seven West Media, to get his thoughts on advertising this holiday season. Smith’s expertise spans the growth of the BVOD market across leadership, management and strategy of the Melbourne digital commercial sales team and the national programmatic sales team.

The holiday season is always a big spending period for advertisers and consumers. What are some key considerations from your perspective?

2022 feels sillier than all the silly seasons to date. I think it’s the fact that we were hibernating through so many restrictions over the past few years. It means we’ve got a new transitory enthusiasm for everything. The impact of this hits across several levels. Firstly, audience volumes have returned to their organic levels of growth for this time of year. Next, advertisers that have reaped the benefits of BVOD over the past two years continue the increase in their investments.

This all culminates in a very busy few weeks ahead, as there are opportunities but also hurdles to navigate.

What trends are you noticing with supply that may impact buyers, especially as we head into the holiday season?

Advertising is not immune to the inflationary pressures we’re seeing across the rest of the economy, and it’s something the market is becoming more comfortable with. Interestingly, we’re seeing a number of groups start to get even smarter about how they trade with available budgets. Our high-quality, addressable activations using our 7REDiQ segments have never been higher, and we’re also seeing a number of brands trading our interactive formats programmatically.

What type of content will drive BVOD viewership this season?

We’re all pretty pumped about the impact the AFL will have on us – but until then and beyond, it will be a battle for great content. We’ve all seen the headlines from the Upfronts season – plenty of broadcasters are talking about new tentpole programming coming in across drama, reality, news and more.

For 7plus, that is half our focus, as 50% of our consumption takes place on all the exclusive content we house. Live Sport and our deals with Disney’s back catalogue and NBCU will have an enormous impact that we’re already starting to see.

What are the top three considerations for campaign planning this holiday season?

1. Work with publishers. I know we all have access to a multitude of data points – but nothing beats getting the right context from an actual discussion about what audiences have done, but more importantly, what they will be doing.

2. Lock your campaigns in. On so many occasions, we see buyers messaging us late in the season wanting to swap deal types because their campaigns are under-delivering – I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of this.

3. Be sure to celebrate the year with your colleagues & clients – but get the work that is needed done so that you can enjoy it properly. 

Any other advice on how advertisers can make the most of this season?

There is much to be said for Jimmy Barnes’ hit 1984 song ‘No Second Prize’ as it also sings true for programmatic buying in live sport. With horse racing, V8 Supercars, AFLW and World Surfing League, amongst many others, all on 7plus – brands must be set and ready to go in the blocks, to tap into these opportunities that drive new and incremental revenue. As live trading is very different, there’s no second prize.