The UK Budgeting Survey, conducted by Westminster Business School, found that press and magazines also took 17%. The biggest category, television, took more than a third of budgets at 35%.
Digital was found to be the smallest medium with just 2% being the average budget spent online.
The study also found that most companies use the same budgets regardless of the economic climate.
Professor Douglas West, director for the Centre for Research in Marketing at Westminster Business School, said: "Millions are spent on advertising and promotion and few firms are entirely confident about whether they are spending too much or too little."
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