A Return to Long-Term Thinking? Reaction to the IPA Bellwether Report for Q3 2023
The latest IPA Bellweather Report is out. Are we headed for a return to long-term thinking? Jon shared his thoughts in LBBs round up of industry leaders views.
(A 2-minute read with a Latte and a Jammie Dodger)
UK industry leaders share their assessment of a report that shows marketing budgets revised up for the tenth successive quarter, although Q3 2023 was the weakest quarter of total marketing budget growth since the final quarter of 2022.
The Q3 2023 IPA Bellwether Report reveals a positive trend in UK marketing budgets, marking the tenth consecutive quarter of growth. Despite a challenging economic climate, companies have increased their main media marketing budgets at the fastest rate since Q1 2021.
This growth is driven by efforts to safeguard brands and seize opportunities presented by competitor hesitancy. However, the overall growth of total marketing spend has slightly decelerated, and the report predicts a real-term decline in adspend until 2024 due to an impending recession.
Looking back on Q3 and ahead to Q4, LBB collected the following reactions from UK business leaders.
Jon Williams, CEO and founder, The Liberty Guild
I’ve supported Manchester City for 40 years. Way back before the petro-dollars, if you’d asked me how they would do this Saturday, I’d say, ‘they’ll win’, because I loved them. And, I believed things would be good. Call it denial or whatever. I love our industry just the same. So, I get why we project a rosy future. But it doesn’t feel like that on the ground, according to a whole raft of freelance talent and clients who we work with. Clients want sales, the talent wants work… both are under pressure. The industry reaction to the preference for sales promotion is understandable. But there is a whole raft of mid-tier brands that simply can’t afford to ‘drive fame’ or ‘impact culture’ - for them the battle is for survival against up-and-coming new-to-world competitors. I totally get why you’d look to SP. The battle is at point of purchase. And it’s now. Next year is a long way off.
Read the full article and the other reactions from UK business leaders here.
Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash
