COVID-19 has dramatically amplified the rate of decline across global marketing budgets, according to data from WARC's latest Global Marketing Index (GMI). Developed by WARC's founder Mike Waterson, who also created the Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), the GMI is a monthly indicator of the state of the global marketing industry based on current conditions among practitioners. An index value of 50.0 indicates no change, below 50.0 indicates decline and above 50.0 indicates growth.
Although the index value for global marketing budgets has been in decline since June 2019, owing mostly to budget tightening for traditional media, COVID-19 has accelerated...