• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • 020 3330 7010
  • marketing@allresponsemedia.com
  • E-mail
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
ARM logo

All Response Media

  • Home
  • About ARM
    • About ARM
    • Meet the Team
  • Our Services
    • TV
    • Digital
      • PPC
      • SEO
      • CRO
      • Social Media
      • Programmatic
    • Offline Media
      • TV
      • TV Execution
      • Press
      • Radio
      • Inserts
      • Door to Door
      • Outdoor
      • DRTV
    • Analytics
    • ARMalytics®
  • Success Stories
    • Client Success Stories
    • TV Star Competition UK
    • TV Star Competition NL
    • Our Work With Startups
  • Content Hub
  • Careers
  • Contact Us
You are here: Home / TV / UK marketing spend hits strongest levels since 2014 

UK marketing spend hits strongest levels since 2014 

29th April 2022 by Ed Feast

The latest IPA Bellwether Report reports the biggest growth in UK marketing budgets since 2014, putting spend at an eight-year high.

Whilst post-pandemic spending in the UK advertising market has exceeded expectations, this increase could be a flash in the pan; the IPA has revised ad spend forecasts for 2022 and 2023 down because of the projected impact on consumers of rising inflation and the supply chain disruption cause by the invasion of Ukraine.  

Consequently, Bellwether adspend growth forecasts for 2022 and 2023 have been revised from 5.2% and 2.5%, down to 3.5% and 1.8%, respectively. 

Paul Bainsfair, IPA Director General sounded cautious: 

“We know we face soaring inflation levels, cost of living increases, supply-chain issues, all exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and some sector recruitment shortages. With forty years of downturn data to learn from, the IPA knows beyond doubt that brands do best when they maintain their investment in longer-term brand-building media, complemented by a smaller ratio of sales activation media. This is the survival code for surviving a downturn.” 

Not all marketers agree that there will be a decrease in investment though, with many showing optimism. 

Growth by media  

The increase in advertising expenditure during Q1 2022 equates to +18.7%, compared to -3.9% in the previous quarter, as advertisers embrace the switch to a ‘living with Covid-19’ strategy as life gets back to ‘normal’. 

In Q1 2022 primary media advertising experienced solid growth with an 18.6% increase, with “other online” segments such as video (+9%) and published brands (+1.3%) being the biggest drivers. Sales promotions (+8.0%), direct marketing (+6.0%), and PR (+0.6%) budgets also increased. 
 
Some sectors did see a decline in spend, with out-of-home (OOH), dropping by 4.6%, and audio, dropping by 8.5%. Market research spend also dropped by 3.5%, but most surveyed marketers expected investment in that area to be freed up throughout 2022-23. 

All Response Media viewpoint 

As consumers start to feel the pinch, spending will almost inevitably be pulled back in some areas. Netflix and other streaming services have already reported some cutting back of subscriber numbers, and supermarkets are jostling to be seen to be maintaining or cutting prices on some staples, whilst hiding increases in other areas. 

Ed Feast
Planning Director

The cutting back of marketing budgets is often a sign that the businesses are expecting to sell fewer units, so marketing budget is pulled back to maintain target profit margin. These cuts would typically be seen in brand advertising though, which is an opportunity for performance and direct response focused businesses. 

Whereas the long-term payback of brand advertising can often be seen as too far in the future to worry about and an easy expense to cut, performance advertisers make monthly decisions based on what’s selling, and maintain the flexibility to scale up fast if the market is there for their products. 

This is something that we saw during the 2008 recession, and also during the Covid lockdown; nimble performance focused businesses really hit their stride. 

It will be important to monitor the market for short-term opportunities across all media as things begin to get more turbulent and remain as nimble and reactive as possible to be in a position to capitalise on any deals, particularly in media such as print and out of home. 

Contact us to see how we can use our advertising capabilities to maximise sales and the overall success of your advertising campaigns.
Speak to one of our experts

FEATURED READS

Marketing effectiveness in the digital era

Could combining OOH and mobile be the way to go?

Brooks picks All Response Media as Pan-European media agency of record

Subscribe For More

Newsletter Signup

Footer

ARM logo

The Leading Performance Media Agency

Building businesses and brands by providing clients with an Unfair Competitive Advantage.
ARMalytics®

Get In Touch

London: Sutton Yard, 65 Goswell Road, EC1V 7EN
Phone: +44 (0) 20 3330 7000

Leeds: Marshalls Mill, Marshall Street, LS11 9YJ
Phone: +44 (0) 20 3330 8050

Amsterdam: Koivistokade 3, 1013 AC
Phone: +31 6 3761 9020

marketing@allresponsemedia.com

Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy | Modern Slavery Policy

  • E-mail
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Our Newsletter

Subscribe to receive exclusive media insights straight to your inbox. We respect your privacy.

Newsletter Signup

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

ARM logo
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are essential to provide you with services available through our website and to enable you to use certain features of our website.

If you disable this cookie, we cannot provide you certain services on our website and we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

Analytical and Performance Cookies

These cookies are used to collect information to analyse the traffic to our website and how visitors are using our website.

For example, these cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the website or the pages you visit which helps us to understand how we can improve our website for you.

The information collected through these tracking and performance cookies do not identify any individual visitor.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!

Advertising and Targeting Cookies

These cookies are used to show advertising that is likely to be of interest to you based on your browsing habits.

These cookies, as served by our content and/or advertising providers, may combine information they collected from our website with other information they have independently collected relating to your web browser's activities across their network of websites.

If you choose to remove or disable these targeting or advertising cookies, you will still see adverts but they may not be relevant to you.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!

Cookie Policy

More information about our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy