Bellwether survey finds business confidence among executives dropped to the lowest level for a year and a half
UK marketing executives cut their budgets in the final three months of 2010 by the biggest amount in a year as confidence in the outlook for 2011 plummeted, according to the latest Bellwether survey.
The influential report, jointly produced by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising and BDO, found that business confidence among marketing executives dropped to the lowest level for a year and a half.
Published today, the quarterly Bellwether survey found that 22% of companies revised their marketing budgets down in the fourth quarter of 2010 amid uncertainty regarding the economic recovery. The IPA pointed out that the scale of the downgrade, a one-year low, is at least better than the cuts recorded in 2008 and 2009 as the recession gripped the UK.
Asked about the financial prospects for their own companies, marketing directors reported the lowest confidence level in 18 months.
In addition, 32% of companies said that they thought the financial prospects for the marketing industry as a whole had deteriorated. It is the first time since the middle of 2009 that companies have reported a deterioration in the industry's prospects.
Budgets were revised across all main media including TV, press and radio advertising as well as other sectors including spend on PR and events. Internet advertising budgets did see "modest" upward growth in the fourth quarter, although at the smallest rate in 18 months.
The report found initial marketing budgets for 2011 indicated that companies would spend more than they had in 2010, with the growth in budgets provisionally the strongest in three years.
However, the rate is "relatively lacklustre by the historical standards of the Bellwether survey".
"That these latest figures reveal a decline in confidence is disappointing, but characteristic of the uncertain climate we find ourselves in," said the IPA president, Rory Sutherland.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/17/bellwether-survey-marketing-budgets
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