The UK business-to-business (B2B) press market has now seen the worst of the downturn, according to industry commentators who are forecasting that trading conditions are on the road to improvement.
The
PPA‘s
B2B Strategic Conference was told that there will be steady growth in the sector over the next twelve months. Speaking at the conference, Simon Marquis, chairman of ZenithOptimedia, said: “Seven out of ten advertisers [in the UK] increased spend in 2002. We’ve seen the worst, and now the US will drive a global recovery and Britain will lead the rest of Europe.”
Nevertheless, the delegates were also told to sit tight as the industry continues to ‘bump along the bottom’, as Peter de Monnink, strategy director of Reed Business Information put it.
Marquis says that value for money is now at the top of advertisers’ priority list and that ‘more rounded communications packages’ should be delivered to accommodate this.
Economic outlook Group chief economist of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Jeremy Peat, offered the Magazines 2003 conference a cautious but positive economic outlook for the year ahead. “We will see a recovery. By 2004 we will be back on trend,” he said.
Peat’s assessment is that in the global economic circumstances, the UK has performed relatively well due to the stability of the economy over the last decade. He forecasts that the next year will see a period of re-balancing and an acceleration of growth to 2.6% in 2004.
Business magazines saw their advertising revenues decline by 7.3% in constant currencies in Q4 2002, according to Advertising Association figures (see Fourth Quarter Sees Boost To UK Adspend).
