Global marketing budgets continue to be hit by economic woes

Based on data from a global panel of 1,295 executives, the GMI’s barometer of marketing spend stood at 47.5 points in July, on a scale where totals below 50 points indicated a negative trend and higher scores indicated growth.

Within this, the reading for Europe contracted by 1.8 points to 42.3 points. The Americas, by contrast, recorded a 2.3 point lift to 52.3 points, and Asia Pacific also improved by 3.5 points to 50.8 points.

Suzy Young, Warc’s data editor, said: “The crisis in the eurozone is impacting on the region’s marketers, with both marketing budgets and general trading conditions now in decline. The outlook for Americas and Asia Pacific is more positive and budgets are rising.”

By medium, TV spend continued to decline, but figures did rise by 1.7 points compared with June, hitting 46.0 points. This was largely due to a 7.2 point increase in Asia Pacific.

Elsewhere, press continued to see particularly adverse conditions on 33.5 points. Radio, on 40 points, and out of home, on 44.1 points, also saw demand soften from the previous month.

More positively, digital recorded 72.8 points on the same metric, and the separate mobile category recorded 67.3 points. Both of these values reflect rapid growth, as marketers transfer budgets away from traditional, and more expensive, channels.

In all, the global headline GMI index, accounting for trading conditions and staffing levels as well as marketing budgets, slid by 1.3 points to 51.3 points in July, the worst performance since November 2011.

Regional variations were also observable here, as returns from the Americas rose by 2.4 points to 56.2 points, whereas Asia Pacific delivered a 0.4 point dip to 53 points.

Europe was the only market to fall below the 50 point benchmark, on 48.1 points, its lowest reading since the survey began in October 2011. This was also the case for the index covering trading conditions, on 51.9 points.