Most Advertisers Remain Positive On Outlook, Shows Survey

The survey gathered the views on advertising and media issues of advertisers commanding more than £700 million of spend per year. There was a notable shift in the key issues from the previous year, when television inflation was top of the agenda. This year, there has been an ‘unprecedented’ collapse in demand for TV, says Martin Sambrook, managing director of Media Audits.

Even though technically, the UK is undoubtedly in a manufacturing and advertising recession (defined as two quarters of negative growth), the majority of respondents to the survey do not believe that the country is facing a recession. However, almost a third of advertisers are planning to reduce their advertising budget next year. The events of 11 September have clearly exacerbated the situation.

More than half of advertisers (56%) plan to increase their budget; 29% plan to decrease it and 15% intend to maintain their current spend levels. The split of advertising budgets is as shown.

The survey also found that advertisers are still strongly in favour of a commercial BBC and two-thirds would like to see a whole-sale commercialisation of the Corporation. However, advertisers are very wary of the prospect of a single ITV company, which would effectively have a stranglehold on the airtime prices for the UK’s single largest commercial broadcaster.

In terms of upcoming technologies, the advertisers surveyed were largely unimpressed. Many see the Tivo digital video recording system as a threat (it can filter out ads) and think that mobile communications technologies (wireless and 3G) are irrelevant.

A quarter of advertisers plan to centralise their European media within five years. However, pan-national media deals are still a way off. Whilst 13% of advertisers said they had concluded one or two cross-border deals, none claimed any more and the remaining 87% have never completed such a deal.