LONDON: Marketing activity showed a strong start to the year as the Global Marketing Index (GMI) for January revealed gains being made in all regions.

The Global Marketing Index, compiled by World Economics, provides a unique monthly indicator of the state of the global marketing industry because it tracks current conditions among marketers and their expectations in the three key areas of trading conditions, marketing budgets and staffing levels.

The headline GMI was up by 2.6 points on the December figure to reach 57.7, indicating that panellists across the world are experiencing strong and rising business activity.

The Americas performed particularly strongly, rising 4.1 to 57.3, although this was still slightly behind Europe, up 1.8 to 58.1, and Asia-Pacific, up 1.5 to 58.5.

Trading conditions were strong and improving in each region apart from Europe where the constituent index slipped 0.9 to 57.9, although this was still a good report. In the Americas, the index leapt 5.3 to reach a value of 59.4 while in the Asia-Pacific region it was up 2.0 to 61.4.

These high index values in each region signify that trading conditions are favourable and improving month-on-month.

The index for global marketing budgets rose by 1.8 to register a value of 55.6 in January. This represents solid growth in the resources devoted by companies across the world to marketing activities. It is also the 25th consecutive month that the index has registered that panellists were experiencing rising budgets.

This growth was most marked in Europe, where the index increased 2.9 to reach 58.2, approaching the record level seen in September 2014.

The Americas showed a similar rise, up 2.6 to 53.1, indicating recovery after being close to the no change level with a value of 50.5 in December. In the Asia-Pacific region, the index was effectively unchanged, dipping 0.1 to 56.3.

Finally, the staffing level index registered a value of 58.2 globally in January, up by 3.6 on the previous month indicating that payrolls are rising at an increasing rate. The rise in the rate of increase in employment occurred across all regions led by the Americas and Asia-Pacific.

Data sourced from World Economics, Warc