IPA Bellwether Report hints at tentative economic improvement

Market Data

Staff

July 13, 2009

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IPA Bellwether Report hints at tentative economic improvement

LONDON - The rate of decline in marketing spend has eased with companies surveyed reporting that their financial prospects have improved for the first time since the first quarter of last year, according to the latest Bellwether report from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA).

The IPA admits that the rate of decline remained severe in the second quarter of the year, raising the risk of marketing spend falling in 2009 even more than in 2008, but suggests that an improvement in financial prospects could add to hopes that the UK recession peaked in the first quarter.

One in three companies reported that their financial prospects had improved compared to one in four reporting a deterioration.

Rory Sutherland, president of the IPA, said: ‘To anyone optimistically inclined the April Bellwether seemed to signal the bottom of the market, and the new report suggests that the worst is over.'

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