The latest Bellwether Report, published today, says that marketing budgets have been revised substantially down for the third quarter of the year. However, it has traditionally been a time when marketing budgets have fallen, and the report says that the falls this time round are less than last year.
Of the companies surveyed, only 15% said they would be increasing marketing budgets, while 23% said they would be making cuts. In the sector breakdown, traditional media was the worst hit, with 24.1% of those surveyed saying they were planning to cut budgets for the quarter, and only 13.8% said that they would be making increases. This balances out at a drop of 10.3%, the biggest fall since the third quarter of 2001.
However, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising countered this with the news that television has seen growth for five consecutive months, and that year-on-year, 24% more television commercials were made.
Direct marketing, traditionally the one bright spot in Bellwether figures, saw its smallest increase for a year, up by 1.2%.
Bruce Haines, group chairman of Leo Burnett and IPA president, said: "These figures do suggest that the industry still has a way to go; however we have seen from previous Bellwether Reports that quarter three is traditionally a time when many marketers revise their budgets down."
He added: "Still, uncertainty both at home and abroad are key factors for the current business sentiment expressed in this report. The evolving situation with Iraq and the state of some euro-zone markets will play largely into the business decisions of many UK marketers both this quarter and next."
The Bellwether Report is a quarterly survey of marketing budgets compiled by NTC Research on behalf of the IPA.
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