2022 Media Trends & Innovations

Every year media usage evolves and innovations are introduced across most media channels. The latest media trends are not surprising and innovations are accelerating. Let’s just jump in!

Media Usage

Media usage continues to shift to digital and will do for many years. This does not mean, however, that traditional media is no longer reaching target audiences or is ineffective at creating awareness and driving consideration and sales. If they didn’t work, global brands like Apple and Coca-Cola wouldn’t continue to invest in them. According to an eMarketer from March 2021, traditional media ad spending in Canada is over $5 billion annually, and it’s projected to remain constant through 2024. And according to ThinkTV, Canadians spent 106 million hours watching television yesterday, watched 22 hours per week, and tv’s average weekly reach is 85%.

We all know that the pandemic threw everyone for a loop, consumers and marketers alike. Media habits shifted quite drastically and many are now back to pre-pandemic levels. Some media have maintained the increased usage enjoyed over the past couple of years, specifically streaming services and all things digital. This is because people have simply gotten used to new ways of accessing content and entertainment and have no reason to go back.

Vovia has been including digital audio along with broadcast radio buys for some time. And as expected, usage of digital audio including podcasts has grown quite a bit in Canada. According to the latest Infinite Dial Canada study from 2021…

• 21% of Canadians listen to AM/FM radio online (flat from 2020)
• 71% listened to online audio last month (+1% vs 2020) and 61% listened weekly (+1% vs 2020)
• Online listening time is coming from broadcast radio (31%) and owned music (30%) with another 35% being net new time not coming from other sources
• 57% have ever listened to a podcast (+7% vs. 2020), 38% listen monthly (+1% vs. 2020), and 23% listen weekly (-1% vs, 2020)

With the increase in video content viewing online, Connected TV and OTT have also grown. We have been including this inventory source along with pre-roll with our broadcast partners for some time. The available inventory has been growing but we are not yet able to do a standalone CTV/OTT buy with any real strong reach and coverage of a mass audience let alone a targeted audience. This will change over time.

Ad spending in Canada:

According to SMI, national brand ad spending in Canada has rebounded in Q1 2022 compared to both Q1 2020 and Q1 2021. Digital media spending in Q1 2022 was up 37% vs. Q1 2020 and 6% v.s Q1 2021. Offline media spend, including broadcast tv and radio, OOH, and print, in Q1 2022 was down 8% versus Q1 2020 but showed a 7% increase versus Q1 2021.

Looking at the share of ad spending, digital represented 54.9% in Q1 2022, a bit less than Q1 2021. Within digital, ad networks.ad exchanges (AKA programmatic display) showed a 2.5% decrease, while paid search was up by 2.7%.

Broadcast Television (+0.2%) and OOH (0.4%) both had a bit of an increase, Broadcast Radio a small decrease (-0.2%), and Print was flat, with newspaper spend decrease being offset by magazine spend increase.

In terms of category spending in Q1 2022, Travel Services spending has increased by 548% versus Q1 2021. Apparel & Accessories had the greatest growth versus Q1 2020 at 96%. Automotive spending was down 22% vs. Q1 202 and 25% versus Q1 2022. This is due to supply chain issues with dealerships not being able to keep up with demand.

On the innovation front, there is so much going on! From new measurement and attribution tools to targeting, to creative formats. Here’s a short list …

Measurement – Numeris VAM (video audience measurement), NLogic Catalyst Analytics (tv attribution), RadioCount, SPADE (radio attribution)

Targeting, ad formats, placements – 3D DOOH, Facebook’s Avantage+, Google’s Performance Max, Social ecommerce, the Metaverse, dynamic ad insertion in broadcast television programming, Canadian AVOD streaming channels, TV screens in resto network, Audio OOH, clickable podcast ads, audio ads in gaming, ACR targeting (automatic content recognition)

Last but not least, ownership changes. This continues to impact the media world and will continue. Truly the digital space is in its infancy in comparison to offline media channels. As the medium evolves, consolidation will happen as companies fight for the small piece of ad dollars that Google and Facebook do not dominate. Here are just a few things going on…

Rogers / Shaw merger
Elon Musk trying to buy Twitter

If there is anything in the blog that you would like to know more about, please reach out!