European Advertisers Confident On 2002 Budgets

Advertisers are taking a cautious but realistic approach to 2002, it found, with ‘no overt signs of doom and gloom’. Eighty percent of respondents said that they are feeling confident that their ad budgets for the year are secure. By contrast, more than half of consumers are having concerns about the security of their jobs and 47% recognise that there is an economic downturn.

The most optimistic comments across the four countries came from the UK, with a third of marketing directors now feeling confident of their businesses’ performances in 2002. More broadly, 60% of advertisers feel that the UK is not heading into a recession, leading to the optimism over budget security.

This positive outlook comes despite a year of profit warnings, job cuts and poor advertising revenues in the media industry, beginning with the dotcom fallout and then exacerbated by the attacks on the US on 11 September.

The French advertising industry is the least confident, according to the survey, with 83% of marketers reckoning there will be no improvement on the poor performance of 2001. Economic recession is thought to be impending by half of all businesses there, but nevertheless 73% believe that their ad budgets are secure for the coming twelve months.

Of the four markets surveyed, Germany has felt the longest period of economic downturn, according to OMD. As a result, 60% of businesses believe that the country is heading into a recession.

The Italians, meanwhile, remain fairly upbeat about 2002’s prospects, with 39% feeling more confident about the coming year and fears of recession the lowest of the four markets (46%).

OMD says that despite the range of outlooks across the four nations, the common theme is that ad budgets are believed to be safe for the coming year.

The latest advertising growth forecasts for these European countries are shown below.