The latest quarterly Bellwether Report, published by Britain's Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, indicates that media advertising budgets generally stabilised in the third quarter of 2003.
Just under two-thirds of the leading UK advertisers polled said their advertising budgets remained steady during the period, compared with 16.1% who had revised up their annual ad expenditure during the quarter, and 19.5% who had revised down.
This modest improvement in sentiment follows four previous quarters in which the numbers of advertisers planning to revise ad spends downward had significantly outweighed those revising them upwards.
Comments IPA president Stephen Woodford: "Industry forecasts suggest that this year will be flat. This survey presents the first hard evidence that these forecasts are on course, with recovery expected in the first quarter of next year."
Data sourced from: Financial Times; additional content by WARC staff
