New Report Shows Advertisers Are To Increase Budgets

A new report from IPA Bellwether has shown that advertisers are looking to increase their quarterly marketing budgets, in a turnaround from the economic uncertainties many had at the end of 2014. The increase to budgets is due to be the largest amount in the last eight years. The report questioned 300 marketers from some of the top companies in the UK.

Marketers increased spend with a net balance of 11.8% – an increase from the 6.4% measured in the previous quarter. It is predicted that this positivity in the sector will continue for the rest of 2015, with 28% of respondents planning to increase their budgets for the following quarters as well. Overall UK ad spend is due to go up by 4.2% this year, also helping to strengthen the marketing sector.

It is believed that TV, press and events will be the areas that benefit most from this increase in budgets, with online budgets witnessing the largest increase of them all in Q1.

Paul Bainsfair, the director general of the IPA, commented that “with over 10 successive quarters of growth in marketing budgets and the best budget year for marketing spend in a decade, this latest Bellwether provides welcome evidence of the extent to which clients recognise and value the significant contribution that marketing communications makes to their business success.”

Paul Smith, the author of the Bellwether report, noted: “Already coming off the best annual performance in a decade, growth looks highly likely to be extended into a third year in 2015/16. Accordingly we are predicting a strong real-term increase in UK ad spend over 2015 as a whole.