Q3 Marketing Report

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October 20, 2023

Following on from Monday’s blog on ‘why your business needs marketing’, we take a look at the Bellwether marketing report on the current marketing outlook from around 300 marketing professionals situated in a variety of business sectors in some of the nation’s top companies.

The headline:

“Total UK marketing budget growth slows to year-to-date low, but main media spending rises again.”

Marketing spend is continuing the trend of growth this year, but is certainly lowing down due to a number of reasons. Business confidence is lowering due to the current economic outlook, and businesses project ad spend to fall in relative terms until 2024 as we tinker on the edge of a UK recession.

Paul Bainsfair, Director General of IPA, comments:

“Those companies that can are heeding the evidence that in general, investing more in main media will help to seady them through the uncertain times and help to ensure the longer term health and profitability of their brands. Crucially, they…are recognising that marketing spend is indeed an investment not a cost.”

Joe Hayes, Principle Economist at S&P Global Marketing Intelligence, comments:

“Firms have gone back to brand-building, with anecdotal evidence suggesting that this move has been made both defensively and offensively. With demand conditions coming under pressure, companies will have to position themselves strongly to stand out from their competitors.”

Why is marketing spend falling?

The Bellweather Marketing Report cites a number of reasons why companies are tightening their belts when it comes to their marketing spend. Panellists who took part in the survey were asked to comment on why this may be:

Further increases in borrowing costs
Persistent inflationary pressures – consumer incomes are being squeezed and there is increased online competition
Deterioration in the UK economic outlook making people reluctant and wary of committing budgets
Skills shortages and issues retaining staff
Dip in sales as customers remain overstocked
Increased costs of doing business because of wages, energy and property costs.

The good news?

Total marketing budget growth is still growing, albeit more slowly than it was. Activities were done as both offensive and defensive as Joe Hays comments above. Keeping ahead of competitors is at the forefront of business’s minds, and investing in marketing is helping them on that front, in addition to some competitors going bust. This growth was seen across the majority of marketing areas from main media marketing to PR and events.

You can read the full and extensive report here:

Source: https://ipa.co.uk/knowledge/publications-reports/q3-2023-bellwether-report/

Thanks to Pexels from Pixabay for the image.