• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, August 29, 2024

The good news is that the U.S. ad market soared 14% in July, making it the strongest month yet in a 15-month expansion. The qualifying news is that it was partially due to an Olympic ad-spending assist.

With five of the Paris Olympic Games -- July 26 to August 11 -- falling in the month, the incremental ad spending from the games accounted for six percentage points of July's growth over the same month a year ago, according to a more detailed analysis provided by Guideline.

That said, July's 8% organic non-Olympic spending still made it one of the highest-growth months of the past 15 months, indicating that the underlying ad economy remains healthy.

To truly understand the impact incremental that ad spending had on the marketplace, consider how it affected two different media: TV vs. digital.

While digital media did get a three-percentage-point Olympic-related boost in July, the national TV advertising marketplace had a 17-percentage-point swing.

And without five days of NBCUniversal's Olympic advertising sales, the national TV ad market would have been down 7% for July.

Expect to see even more dramatic swings when MediaPost updates Guideline's monthly U.S. Ad Market Tracker index for August.