IPA Bellwether: UK marketing budgets continue falling, recovery expected in 2021

As expected, UK marketing budgets continued to decline into Q4 2020, though less sharply than in Q3, but with recovery on the horizon, marketers are echoing consumer sentiments of macro gloom while also being more positive about the prospects for their own company.

What it means 

The turmoil of 2020, where lockdown restrictions actively shut down certain advertising formats (such as cinema), appears to be edging closer to equilibrium in 2021. Greater positive sentiment, despite a strange macro picture, suggests that brands are planning to lay the foundations for recovery.  

Details

• A net balance of -24.0% of panellists from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising's (IPA) latest Bellwether Report logged a contraction in marketing budgets during the final quarter of 2020.
  
• Just 16.4% of firms noted an increase in available funds.
• Some 40.4% of firms experienced a decline.

Looking ahead to 2021

• The coming financial year, 2021/22, is more optimistic, with a net balance of +12% of firms expecting total marketing budgets to be revised upwards.
• Interestingly, optimism abounded when panellists talked about their own company's prospects, with a net balance of +18.1% of firms now more confident of an improvement, compared to -3.9% three months ago.