Global Marketing Budgets Up Again, Says Warc

Global marketing budgets continued to rise in the second quarter of 2014, partly driven by planned mobile and digital spend - according to the latest data from Warc's Global Marketing Index.

The index tracks the views of marketers within their organisation and region on a monthly basis, drawing on responses from a panel of 1,225 execs, and looks at marketing budgets, trading conditions and staffing levels. A reading of 50 indicates no change, and above 60 indicates rapid growth.

In April, the overall index was 58.3, a rise of 1.1 points from March. Overall marketer confidence was highest in the Americas on 59.9 (up 2.4 points); while Europe's headline index also rose, from 57.0 in March to 57.5 in April; and confidence in Asia Pacific remained high at 57.4.

The increase was partly driven by a rise in the index for global marketing budgets, which recorded 55.6 in April, a month-on-month gain of 1.4 points. During April, planned digital spend rose by 4.2 points to 79.3, while the mobile advertising index value of 75.2 marked a 4.9 point growth from March. Warc says marketers seem willing to increase mobile budgets at a greater rate than at any other time over the last two years.

Globally, the index for trading conditions fell 1.4 points to 61.1, with those in Europe showing the greatest decline in index value, down 4.6 points to 58.9 in April. The same index for Asia Pacific also dipped 2.8 points to 60.4, while trading conditions in the Americas rose 3.1 points this month to 63.5, equalling levels not seen since April 2012.

Staffing levels climbed by 3.3 points in April to reach 58.0, with the highest growth in recruitment seen in the Americas (60.5), followed by Europe (58.2) and Asia Pacific (56.3).

Suzy Young, Data and Journals Director at Warc, comments: 'This is another month of strong data, signalling that marketers are becoming increasingly optimistic within the broader economic improvement. The very sharp increase in planned mobile spend is especially striking this month, and signals that the general shift in marketing budgets towards digital could actually be accelerating in the months ahead.'

Web site: www.warc.com .