Main media budget increases rise to highest level in nine years, Bellwether finds
UK businesses revised their total marketing budgets upwards to the highest level in more than two years, according to the latest IPA Bellwether report, with all seven of the marketing expenditure categories tracked by the quarterly study reporting budget growth in Q3.
A net balance of +9.8% of panellists made upward revisions to their main media budgets — a nine-year high and a stark increase from the +1.5% seen in the prior quarter.
All five subcategories of main media spend (Video, Other Online, Audio, OOH and Published Brands) registered upward net budget revisions, the first time this has occurred since the subcategories began being tracked in Q1 2020.
Main media was led by Other Online (+17.2%) and Video (+9.8%), with more modest upward revisions for OOH (+3.6%), Audio (+1.1%) and Published Brands (+0.8%).
More than a quarter (25.6%) of Bellwether panellists raised their budgets in Q3, compared with one in 10 (11.3%) that reported a reduction. The net balance of +14.3% marks a third consecutive quarterly increase.
“This is the most optimistic Bellwether report I’ve read in years,” said Sue Benson, CEO of Manchester-based ad agency The Behaviours Agency and IPA chair for England & Wales. She declared “we now have an economic backdrop that is both helpful and hopeful” heading into the “golden quarter”.
The more optimistic tone seems anachronistic at first. Global economies are contending with a series of interrelated headwinds, many of which stem from the Trump administration’s foreign and fiscal policy.
The US-Israel war with Iran has continued without real prospects of a resolution in sight, choking the Strait of Hormuz and causing an ongoing energy shock. Rising inflation and interest rate hikes meant to curb it have exacerbated growing concern in bond markets that many leading economies, including the US and France, face looming debt crises amid ballooning budgets and an inability to raise enough tax revenue to cover them.
The growth picture in the UK has nevertheless become relatively sunnier under Andy Burnham’s premiership. Burnham has renewed efforts to build closer ties to the European Union, putting at least a partial reversal of Brexit back on the agenda as part of an effort to boost economic growth for both the UK and the bloc.
The Government will announce its autumn budget on 28 October.
This week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast the UK economy to grow by more than previously expected this year (+1.3%, up from the 1% it predicted in July), though it has nevertheless warned growth is anticipated to slow in 2027 amid the “highly uncertain” fallout from the US-Iran war.
IMF chief economist Silvana Tenreyro told BBC News the UK is also now forecast to have the smallest budget deficit of G7 nations by 2031, noting the UK is one of the only major economies on course to stabilise its national debt.
Alex Lamaro-McCrindle, digital lead at the Miroma Founders Network, a specialist marketing agency working with high-growth brands, told The Media Leader the Bellwether offered a more cautious outlook than it first appears.
“The sharp downgrade pencilled in for 2027 shows this optimism is short-term, revised quarter-by-quarter rather than settled,” he said. “We know how exposed we are to shocks, and unpredictability now feels like the baseline, which makes forecasting harder and explains swings like these.”
Lamaro-McCrindle shared that Miroma is “seeing that volatility first-hand, too”, with greater fluctuations in its clients’ business performance than usual.
Exceeding expectations
While main media saw substantial positive budget revisions, growth in marketing budgets was led by public relations (+15.3% net balance).
PR budgets have been revised upward in 13 consecutive quarters, with the category likely benefiting from its usefulness in supporting generative engine optimisation (GEO) strategies.
Events budgets also grew double-digit (+15.1% net balance), a nine-quarter high, as did sales promotion budgets (+13.1%).
Direct marketing budgets rose to a net balance of +5.2%, matching the net balance for increased spend on market research. It is the first positive reading for market research budgets in seven quarters, and the highest since Q4 2021.
“With growth back at the top of the Government’s agenda, it’s encouraging to see businesses increasing marketing investment at the strongest rate in more than two years, underlining advertising’s role as a driver of demand, competitiveness and economic prosperity,” commented IPA director general Paul Bainsfair.
Bainsfair called it “particularly encouraging” to see upward revisions across every Bellwether category and all main media subcategories.
Maryum Baluch, an economist at S&P Global Marketing Intelligence and author of the Bellwether report, said it was “unsurprising” to see businesses willing to lift marketing spend given the UK economy has “beat expectations so far in 2026”.
“In all cases, quarterly budget growth exceeded expectations set earlier in the year, highlighting the breadth of improvement,” she noted. Indeed, some categories had in fact been forecast to see budget cuts at the start of the year.