LONDON: Marketing activity in Europe reached an all-time high in April, according to the latest Global Marketing Index (GMI), which also recorded encouraging growth in the Americas and Asia-Pacific.

The headline GMI for April registered a score of 54.4, which represented the third consecutive month of growth since December's survey low of 51.7.

Based on responses from a global panel of 2,000+ members, the WARC Global Marketing Index provides a unique monthly indicator of the state of the global marketing industry and uses a benchmark score of 50 points to show no change.

By this measure, the GMI for Europe reached a record high of 60.6 in April, indicative of rapid improvement, while the GMI for the Americas rose to 50.2, or the region’s first sign of increased marketing activity since September 2016.

Asia-Pacific also saw positive growth as its headline GMI increased 1.3 points from March to 51.8, the strongest growth rate versus March out of the three covered in the survey.

Turning to the Index for Global Marketing Budgets, WARC reported that it scored 52.6 in April, a rise of 1.5 points since March and its highest level since May 2016.

By region, marketers in Asia-Pacific increased their budgets for the first time in 15 months in April, which raised the region's Marketing Budgets Index by 2.2 points to 50.7.

Europe continued to register improved conditions in the marketplace and the region's Marketing Budgets Index reached 57.7 in April. However, there were signs of further budget cuts in the Americas where the region's index score stood at 48.5.

Encouragingly, trading conditions looked positive across all regions in April, with the index for Europe reaching 62.5, followed by Asia-Pacific (53.2) and the Americas (52.6). Taken together, the Global Trading Conditions Index rose to 56.2.

Meanwhile, digital (71.4) and mobile (69.0) continued to attract increased levels of marketing budget share globally, although TV (48.9), press (35.0), radio (41.9) and OOH (49.1) all saw their budgets contract.

This trend was fairly consistent across each region, with the exception of TV in Europe (57.3) and OOH in both Europe (52.3) and Asia-Pacific (51.1).

Finally, the Staffing Index registered a positive global score of 54.3 in April, suggesting more staff have been hired compared to the same period last year.

But employment levels are not evenly spread, with Europe recording a Staffing Index score of 61.6, compared with 51.7 in Asia-Pacific and just 49.5 in the Americas.

The Global Marketing Index was set up by WARC and World Economics in 2011. As of April 2017, WARC has taken over the running of the Index from World Economics.

Data sourced from WARC