Marketer Confidence Index Falls in August

Global marketers' confidence fell in August despite overall conditions improving across the sector, according to Warc's latest Global Marketing Index (GMI).

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 August, headline GMI recorded 54.4; a fall of 2.2 points from July's index and a 1.2 point fall from this time last year. Budgets registered a decline in Asia Pacific for the first time since September 2013, where the headline index was 51.8, after a fall of 3.3 points from July. Meanwhile, trading conditions showed 'rapid improvement' across Europe, which had a headline index of 56.0 in August, despite a 1.2 point fall from the previous month. Warc says that optimism is also high in the Americas, despite a 2.5 fall in headline index reading last month, to 55.2 in August, and a 3.1 point fall from the prior year period.

Marketing budgets were almost flat globally, but a very slight increase gave a 'record' 53.1 in August, marking the nineteenth consecutive month of budget improvement. The highest reading was noted in Europe at 55.5, up 1.4 points from July, followed by the Americas on 54.2 (also up 1.4 points) - but an index reading of 48.2 in Asia Pacific marked the first month of a net decline in budgets in the region since September 2013.

James McDonald (pictured), Research Analyst at Warc, comments: 'Despite a fall in headline indexes this month, industry consensus is that things remain on the up, with trading conditions in particular proving favourable for marketers in all regions.'

Web site: www.warc.com .