A breakdown of the IPA's Q4 2022 Bellwether Report
Yesterday, the IPA released Q4 2022’s Bellwether Report. The Report is researched and published by S&P Global on behalf of the IPA. It features original data drawn from a panel of around 300 UK marketing professionals and provides a key indicator of the health of the economy. The report also helps us, as an industry, look to the near future and aids us in what to expect.
The survey panel has been carefully selected to represent all key business sectors, drawn primarily from the nation’s top 1000 companies.
So what were the key findings of the report? And how should we react? Well, I spoke to three of my colleagues about specific areas of the report.
Key finding 1: Positive outlooks
Bellwether participants are reportedly expanding marketing budgets to support their brands through the impending downturn, and main media advertising budgets category returns to growth. Continuing on into 2023/24, the participants reported strong growth is forecast.
John Kehoe, CEO said: “It’s wonderful to see a more positive outlook in this latest report compared to the quarter before.With brands enduring tough circumstances in the last few years, I think now we are better positioned and well-equipped to react to market changes and maximise budgets to deliver stronger ROI’s than ever before.”
Amy Roberts, Head of Planning also commented: ”It is great to see brands are growing their total marketing budgets, and that Q4 2022 didn’t see a decline in spending versus previous years – This shows that brands are back with confidence. Especially with it being reported that 39.5% are expecting to continue to grow their budgets in 2023/24.”
Key finding 2: Video & Events Marketing
The report found that Events (net balance of +5.7%, vs. +4.5% previously) was the top-performing Bellwether category in Q4: this shows a trend coming to light in brands focusing their efforts and investing in direct connection with their audiences.
Additionally, video marketing outperformed the other monitored segments during the final quarter of 2022, registering its strongest upward revision since this data first became available in Q1 2020. A net balance of +13.7 of companies recorded budget growth, up from +8.7% in the third quarter.
Amy Roberts commented, “We are continuing to see growth for video led media, which now offers so much opportunity for brands, with lots of creative avenues to provide a well rounded, entertaining and engaging advertising campaign.
The strongest budgets last quarter came from TV Marketing Campaigns, and with more opportunities than ever before, and the rise of video marketing, we can create cross platform campaigns to really cut through and reach audiences effectively.”
Beatriz Gonzalez, Head of Digital said: “From a digital perspective, it is great to see brands are relying more on digital marketing, there’s a considerable growth in video advertising as well as ‘other media’ which includes things like online display- these are two areas where we’ve particularly seen the growth in Q4 with the rise of CTV.”
Key finding 3: Main media budgets
According to the survey’s findings, for the first time since Q1 of 2022, main media marketing budgets were upwardly revised. A net balance of +4.4% of companies registered an expansion during Q4, which is a turnaround from Q3. In addition according to data on Bellwether companies', a balance of +13.4% of firms are expecting growth in main media marketing budgets this year- which is great news, and reflects the positive outlook being seen.
Overall, this shows that brands are back in awareness phases and not just pushing sales messages for quick wins. They’re ready to invest in their branding, and connecting with their audiences across campaigns. For us, these key findings are a great start to the year, knowing that many of us in the industry hold a positive and determined outlook.