Growing marketing spend boosts hopes for UK economy

Hopes of the UK economy avoiding a triple-dip recession have been boosted with a survey showing marketing spend growing at its fastest rate for over a year, despite the tough economy.

According to The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising's quarterly bellwether survey, a net 1.1 per cent of companies hiked spending in the last three months of 2012, the highest since the third quarter of 2011.

According to the trade body, a majority of advertisers had plans for increased budgets this year and ad spend needed to "steadily accelerate" by 2017.

Advertising had again seen the biggest growth in the past three months while so-called "main media", including TV and newspapers, were flat. Further sales promotions, public relations and events had all been cut.

Sounding a warning Chris Williamson, the chief economist at research firm Markit and author of the Bellwether report, said companies remained cautious due to uncertainty about the economic outlook at home and abroad.

Meanwhile, marketing executives remain cautiously optimistic about increasing their budgets for 2013, although minimally. This was, however, often the case at the outset of each year as spend could be pegged back if necessary.

Around 30 per cent of marketing executives canvassed for the latest Bellwether survey also were more optimistic about how well their businesses would do this year, the biggest proportion in nine months.