NEWS13 October 2011
UK— There was good news for research in the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising’s (IPA) quarterly Bellwether Report on marketing spending, but uncertainty remains about the future.
Marketing budgets in the UK were revised upwards in the third quarter, according to the report, with a net 3.4% of respondents reporting an increase in spend. For the ‘all other’ marketing category, which includes market research alongside activities including PR and sponsorship, the equivalent figure was 1.5% – the first signs of growth for the category in four years.
Twenty-one per cent of the companies surveyed revised their budgets upwards, while only 17% reported a reduction.
But executives were significantly less positive about near-term prospects for the industry than they were three months ago, and only “modestly optimistic” about their own business’s prospects.
IPA president Nicola Mendelsohn (pictured) encouraged companies to remain “as upbeat as possible” to meet the challenges of the uncertain financial environment.