Sector: Media

As the economy recovers, UK advertising budgets are set to grow this year. This is according to findings from the latest survey of 300 companies by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA).

In a pronouncement welcomed by the legions of media companies that have been battered and bruised by the collapse in advertising spending, the IPA has revealed that while advertisers cut their budgets again in the final quarter of 2009, they did so at the slowest rate since the recession began.

Roughly a quarter of those firms surveyed conceded that they trimmed their advertising budgets in the final three months of 2009, while around 18 per cent indicated that they upped their advertising budgets. However, in a good omen for this year, the majority of the companies quizzed said they were planning budgetary increases in 2010.

Within the economically sensitive advertising sector, budgets are increasing for internet and direct marketing, which continue to outperform traditional but declining advertising forms such as radio, TV and newspapers.

Commenting on signs of a return of confidence to the market, Andy Viner, head of media at accountancy group BDO (which carried out the survey alongside the IPA), enthused that ‘after nine consecutive quarters of reduced marketing spend, it appears that the rate of decline is at its slowest in nearly two years’.