New ANA Survey: Economy Still a Concern Leading to Restrained Spending
Economy Still a Concern Leading to Restrained Spending Shows New ANA Survey
87 percent of marketers focused on cost savings and spending reductions
NEW YORK - Marketers are still being pressured to reduce their costs and spending in light of the economy, finds a new survey by the ANA (Association of National Advertisers). Today, 87 percent of respondents indicated they are identifying cost savings and reductions, the same as one year ago, and only slightly improved from 93 percent six months ago.
The top four ways marketers are reducing costs and spending remain the same.
- 81 percent are reducing departmental travel and expenses
- 74 percent are reducing advertising media budgets
- 71 percent are challenging agencies to reduce internal expenses and/or identify cost reductions
- 64 percent are reducing advertising production budgets
Reducing agency compensation continues to gain greater consideration by marketers. 56 percent are planning to do this today, versus 48 percent six months ago and 32 percent a year ago.
A positive note is that fewer marketers are eliminating/delaying new projects, compared with past surveys-53 percent in the most recent survey versus 58 percent six months ago and 61 percent a year ago.
"Marketing has been dramatically altered by the current economic conditions," said Bob Liodice, President and CEO of the ANA. "Our ongoing series of recession surveys show that while marketers are consistently hopeful, the reality is that more tempered spending has become the new norm."
This third installment of ANA's recession survey follows surveys conducted in July/August 2008 and January/February 2009. 128 client-side marketers responded to this most recent survey.
Marketers' actual spending was lower than forecast in the previous survey.
- In January/February 2009, 49 percent of marketers thought their advertising budgets would be reduced in the next six months, when in fact, 62 percent experienced a budget decrease.
- 43 percent thought their budgets would remain the same, but only 31 percent did indeed stay the same.
- 8 percent thought they would see a budget increase, whereas 7 percent did.
Looking Ahead
Marketers are cautious about their future budgets. 17 percent are hopeful that their budgets will increase while 39 percent think that they will see reductions and 44 percent think they will remain the same
About the ANA
The mission of the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) is to drive growth for marketing professionals, brands and businesses, the industry, and humanity. The ANA serves the marketing needs of 20,000 brands by leveraging the 12-point ANA Growth Agenda, which has been endorsed by the Global CMO Growth Council. The ANA’s membership consists of U.S. and international companies, including client-side marketers, nonprofits, fundraisers, and marketing solutions providers (data science and technology companies, ad agencies, publishers, media companies, suppliers, and vendors). The ANA creates Marketing Growth Champions by serving, educating, and advocating for more than 50,000 industry members that collectively invest more than $400 billion in marketing and advertising annually.
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