Warc’s Global Marketing Index reported that marketing budgets continued to show a decline globally in December. European marketers were found to remain the most pessimistic and expect budgets to continue to fall (44.8). In Asia Pacific budget expectations improved slightly but still recorded a net decline (48.0), while marketers in the Americas registered a near-neutral value of 50.2.
Warc’s Global Marketing Index recorded a headline GMI – a metric which combines monthly responses from a global panel of marketers marketing budgets, trading conditions and staffing levels – recorded a reading of 52.5 for December.
The December GMI an improvement compared with November and is in line with findings from the August–October period. By region, the index for the Americas showed the strongest expansion on 56.8 and conditions in Asia Pacific also improved (51.5). European marketers remain the least positive with an index value of 49.7.
In December, there was improvement across all of the three individual components that contribute towards the headline GMI metric.
The index for global trading conditions showed significant improvement on 57.1, up from 53.4 in November. This represents the highest reading recorded since May 2012. The index for the Americas increased to 61.1, followed by Asia Pacific on 55.6 and Europe on 54.1.
The global index of staffing levels – the third component of headline GMI – showed a modest improvement in December on 53.0. By region, the index for the Americas indicated rapidly rising levels of employment with a reading of 59.2, with Asia Pacific on 51.0 and Europe on 50.2.
Suzy Young, data editor at Warc, said: “The outlook for global trading conditions is positive according to the December data, but this confidence has not carried over to budget setting. There remain a number of risks to future global economic growth and marketing strategies are, consequently, defensive.”
