News that overall UK marketing budgets were increased in Q2 2013 is a good indication that the economy may be showing signs of a recovery and digital marketing has shown to be the driving force behind a boost in Q2 ad budgets, according to Econsultancy and a new report – IPA Bellwether Report
22% of companies indicated an upward revision in the latest survey compared to 15% that had scaled back spending. The resulting net balance of +7.3% is the highest since Q3 2007.
A report from North West based insolvency practioners, Begbies Traynor, seemed to concur that things are looking up for business showing a big reduction in ailing firms this year, compared with last.
The firm said sectors which had been experiencing difficulties as recently as the first quarter of this year – such as professional services – had seen notable improvements since the end of March.
Gary Lee, partner at Begbies Traynor in Manchester, said:
“When the economy stalled, it really fell off a cliff, so anybody expecting it to explode into life and get back to those levels overnight needs to look elsewhere.
“But there are definite green shoots in the economy here in the North West with increases in consumer confidence bringing stability to sectors which had been struggling, such as retail, and bars and restaurants.
“Since the end of June, the IMF has raised the UK’s growth forecast, we’ve got a new Governor at the Bank of England making clear that interest rates won’t be rising any time soon, and we’ve got a strong feelgood factor generated by a spell of warm weather, the British Lions success and Andy Murray winning Wimbledon.
“That may sound trivial, but it will all help get people into shops and businesses, spending money and accelerating the growth shown in these figures.”
These are still challenging times for many businesses not least among the media fraternity; the marketing landscape has changed dramatically over just the past 5 years with ‘digital media’ replacing many of the more traditional advertising routes of for example: press, radio and TV. One of the key factors in the reported increase in advertising spend was what the report rather broadly refers to as ‘the Internet’.
Companies indicating that internet-related marketing budgets had been increased put it far above the other budget areas in the report, with PR achieving the second highest net increase with just +3.4%.
Analysis of marketing budgets in Q2
Source: Econsultancy. Read the full article here