Bellwether Report – Marketing Budget Increases – Internet Marketing Expected to Rise

18th July 2008 4:53 pm

Two headlines that The Guardian didn’t write but they did report both facts…

Anthony Wreford, the deputy chairman for US marketing services company Omnicom Europe, said he expected internet marketing to rise. “Internet spending will continue to grow as more clients see the importance of this form of communication and the ability to use this medium, like PR, in a tactical context,” Wreford added.

“government and charities, IT and computing and the financial services sector reported upwards revisions.”

Caitlin Fitzsimmons, The Guardian 14 July 2008

The Bellwether Report is compiled every quarter by NTC Economics on behalf of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA). The report looks at how marketing budgets are revised upwards or downwards after being set at the start of the year and it is compiled from information supplied by 250 companies in the UK’s top 1000 with most of the respondents being marketing directors.

One finding of the report for Q2 2008 is grabbing all the headlines in today’s media rush for news of doom and gloom in the UK and it hits on one of the headline writers favourite words – downturn.

The report shows that marketing budgets are being revised down to the lowest level since 2001 and cites rising costs, disappointing sales and growing economic gloom as the main reasons.

The UK press just loves to make the worst of a bad job, so how is that being reported?

Here’s the Guardian headline from Caitlin Fitzsimmons article published 14 July 2008

Bellwether report: Ad budgets see sharpest downturn since 9/11 attacks

I know that the journalist is quoting directly from the report as it is published on the IPA website but isn’t the article so much more depressing and shocking when associated with terrorist attacks. Why not just say “since 2001” as today’s situation is in no way connected to the situation that existed after 9/11 – but it doesn’t have the same dramatic impact, does it? Maybe the IPA, whose website has the strap line, “Promoting the Values of Agencies”, could have taken the drama out of their headline instead of adding to the aparent media charge to promote panic.

However, we wouldn’t really expect to get help from the newspapers and if times are difficult then the advertising industry as a whole – including Whitney Woods – will just have to roll up our sleeves and simply try harder.

For a long time, Whitney Woods has been urging advertisers to make the most of every opportunity that comes along. Go for quality not quantity. Choose ingenuity over dumbing down, promote innovation over the mundane. When the British press is so desperately set on making sure that the nation continues on a downward trend it is time for agencies to work harder.

Our opinion is shared by an illustrious voice in the advertising industry. The IPA website quotes Moray MacLennan, IPA President, Chairman Europe M&C Saatchi “Agencies cannot affect the short term economic outlook, but they can …strive for even more original and innovative solutions so they can buck the trend.”

I wonder if it’s worth sending Moray McLennan one of our sample packs.