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Stuart O'Brien

Join BNP Paribas, Coca-Cola and Macmillan at the Digital Marketing Solutions Summit
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The Digital Marketing Solutions Summit is entirely FREE to attend, taking place on May 14th 2019 at the Hilton Canary Wharf in London.

Simply register your VIP place here for the opportunity to:

  • Meet new suppliers and discover innovative solutions – and you’ll be provided with a bespoke itinerary of pre-arranged meetings, based on your own individual requirements
  • Learn new tips and discover insight via a series of seminar sessions
  • Network with like-minded senior marketing professionals

You’ll be joining representatives from the likes of:

BNP Paribas
CitySprint
Clifford Chance
Coca-Cola
CompareTheMarket
Harbour Hotels
Interstate Hotels & Resorts
Kettle Foods
Macmillan Cancer Support
Orange Business Services
SofaSofa
Softomotive
The Berkeley Group
The Lalit London
Trend Micro
West Midlands Trains

… and many more

We have a limited number of VIP places. Simply click here to register your place.

For more information, contact Katie Bullot on 01992 374049 or email k.bullot@forumevents.co.uk.

Alternatively, if you’re a digital marketing solutions provider and would like to showcase your products and services at the event, contact James Howe on 01992 374067 or email j.howe@forumevents.co.uk.

SAVE THE DATE: Print & Digital Innovations Summit 2019
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The next Print & Digital Innovations Summit will take place on November 14th at the Hilton Canary Wharf in London.

Don’t miss out! Register your place today! You’ll be able to:

  • Meet with innovative and budget-saving suppliers based on your requirements and upcoming projects
  • Network with other senior education procurement professionals

PLUS! Enjoy complimentary lunch and refreshments.

Last year’s delegates included representatives from A Nelson & Co, Abel & Cole, Beauty Bay, Boden, Brora, Cancer Research UK, Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors, Civil Society Media, Covea Insurance, Direct Line Group, Dubarry, Fitflop, Marie Curie, Miller Insurance Services, Not On The High Street, Pasquill, Santander, Swansea University, The Hut Group, The Lalit London and more.

Places are limited, however, so register now to secure your place and avoid disappointment.

Or for more information, call Emily Gallagher on 01992 374085 or email e.gallagher@forumevents.co.uk.

To attend as a supplier, call Joel Millson on 01992 374070 or email j.millson@forumevents.co.uk.

For more information, visit www.printinnovationssummit.co.uk.

GUEST BLOG: Customer Experience – The latest silo in the marketing mix
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Joey Moore, Head of Product Marketing, Episerver

For years, marketers have talked—and written—extensively about the disconnect between marketing and IT. Who should own email lists and sensitive data? Who should have access to the website CMS? Who should decide which marketing automation platforms to install? These are just a few of the questions that have plagued the marketing/IT debate.

In 2019 however, this debate finally feels like it’s come to a close. According to new research from Episerver, 93 percent of marketers now have the ability to directly edit their company’s website, while 80 percent expect to have complete ownership over their brand’s web presence within the next two years.

Instead of seeing this as a ‘land grab’ from IT, however, 62 percent of marketers say they are simply working collaboratively with their IT departments in order to reduce silos and ensure the best customer experiences. While this is great news for customers, the problem of marketing silos has not gone away for good. Instead, a new debate has started to rage—this time between marketers and the new wave of customer experience (CX) professionals.

Over the last few years, customer experience has become a central topic for most businesses, with as many as 35 percent hiring specific teams and individuals to manage the CX journey. In contrast, only 45 percent of marketers feel they have genuine autonomy over the customer experience, with many feeling that CX teams aren’t delivering the same quality of experience that marketers themselves would provide if they were in charge.

As a result, Episerver’s research shows that as many as 80 percent of marketers are planning to take over the CX role by 2020, removing the need for standalone customer experience departments and professionals.

While new technologies are making it easier than ever for marketers to control elements of the customer experience, by attempting to force out CX teams, marketers are falling into the exact same trap they did with IT.

Just as IT teams work across so much more than just marketing technologies, today’s CX teams also provide a far more all-encompassing view. Working with customer service departments, contact centres, HR and employee training courses, the remit of today’s CX professionals goes well beyond just marketing. Given this fact, marketers should be careful about biting off more than they can chew.

Instead, what is needed is a joint approach, one in which marketing and CX teams work together and collaborate in the best interests of the end customer. Technology can enable this collaboration, providing a seamless link through which marketing and customer experience teams can decide the CX direction of their company and ensuring it’s implemented across all levels of the brand. This will be the future of CX, not total marketing ownership, but technology-driven collaboration.

UK ad spend ends 2018 on £23.5bn high note
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UK ad spend rose 5.1% year-on-year to reach £5.6bn in Q3 2018, marking the 21st consecutive quarter of market growth and the industry’s strongest third quarter of the year since 2015.

This record investment highlighted bu the Advertising Association/WARC Expenditure Report underpins the preliminary estimate for 2018 ad spend of £23.5bn – meaning the industry will have grown 6.0% year-on-year.

Key headlines from the report show:

* Q3 2018 was the 21st consecutive quarter of adspend market growth

* UK adspend rose 5.1% year-on-year to reach £5.6bn in Q3 2018

* The preliminary adspend estimate for 2018 remains at £23.5bn – meaning growth of +6.0% year-on-year

* Q3 2018 saw the strongest third quarter growth since 2015 – the first nine months of 2018 also saw the strongest growth since 2015

* Mobile saw a growth rate of 23.6% y-o-y in Q3, with overall internet growth at 12.3%

Overall market growth is being driven by increasing spend on online advertising, which is expected to grow 9.8% this year, following on from an estimated 13.4% rise in 2018.

In the individual formats, the positive story for digital was reflected across the board. Notably high growth was recorded for digital radio ad formats, with a year-on-year rise in Q3 of +25.1%, and in VoD TV at +11.5%. Regional digital newsbrands witnessed growth of +10.9%, with national digital newsbrands measuring +3.7% growth, and digital magazine brands +1.5%.

Discussing the findings from the report, Stephen Woodford, Chief Executive at the Advertising Association, said: “UK advertising continues to perform strongly, now delivering its twenty-first straight quarter of growth and demonstrating the commitment of British advertisers to investing in the growth and success of their businesses.

“As the clock ticks down to our departure from the EU, it is crucial the Government provides the certainty we are all seeking in business. We are predicting continued adspend growth of 4.6% in 2019 and an agreement with the EU that keeps disruption at a minimum and keeps trade and talent flowing will greatly help this growth. UK advertising is the best in the world and we need a deal that ensures we keep it that way.”

James McDonald, Data Editor at WARC, said: “Our projection of 4.6% growth in the UK’s ad market this year is firmly based on a business- favourable outcome from the EU withdrawal agreement, and would mark a decade of continuous expansion since the last advertising recession.

“Further, a preliminary estimate of 6% growth in advertising investment last year represents a faster rate of expansion than was recorded in 2017, and is therefore indicative of an industry in rude heath. This is particularly true in relation to digital ad formats, all of which are currently forecast to attract higher levels of investment in 2019.”

GUEST BLOG: Digital marketing and its relationship with print in 2019
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Online advertising and digital platforms are the main drivers for many marketing campaigns. But in this digital age, can businesses survive without print advertising or, is there a future for digital and print playing to their strengths and working together?

Where The Trade Buys, specialist providers of marketing materials for events, has pulled together a helpful guide with their insights…

A focus on digital campaigns for driving sales

Many campaigns today are lost without digital. With more consumers than ever before spending time on the internet, businesses would be foolish not to get involved with online marketing.

Search engine marketing is one area of advertising that companies are becoming more involved with. As the name suggests, this side of digital marketing focuses on driving a business’ site to the top of the search results around relevant target phrases — from corporate keywords like ‘business cards’ to more fashion-focused targets like ‘dresses’. As a result, this can increase brand exposure and site traffic while improving sales figures.

Social media marketing is another area of business activity that wasn’t popular a few years back. From paid adverts to viral campaigns, the digital world has opened up many doors for small and medium companies in particular — exposing themselves to an audience that may not have known they existed and in turn, generating mass interest.

The digital world has made room for businesses to begin analysing their audience, allowing them to gain a greater insight to their general behaviour and spending patterns. From tracking analytics, whether this is across social media platforms or the main website, marketing managers are able to identify key areas of interest and create campaigns around this to drive sales.

There are many methods businesses can follow to hook an online audience and stay ahead of their competitors. Through a combination of search engine and social media marketing, many brands are beginning to run competitions and deals that are only exclusive to an online following. These low-cost campaigns will benefit from extensive reach.

Does print advertising still have something unique to offer

Although more businesses are beginning to take their focuses online, they shouldn’t neglect the power of print and the opportunities that can come off the back of it. Print very much has a place in modern advertising as it can offer a personal touch unlike no other and generally has a longer life cycle which is always beneficial for the exposure of your brand. Take printed leaflets for example, once they have been posted through the door, whoever picks them up will have to acknowledge your materials!

As well as door-to-door print advertising, business merchandise has not taken a backseat since the sprout in popularity of online promotions. Brand image has never been more important for businesses and shouldn’t be ignored — as a result, more companies are making investments in personalised products that represent what they stand for. Whether this is to help them externally, with the likes of outdoor banners, or internally for your office with the likes of customised calendars.

Although printed goods can often be higher in price, they can drive exceptional ROI to your campaign and create a memorable experience for the receiver which should be a core focus for your print campaign. This can be achieved through eye-catching designs and a choice of luxury materials which will lead to a meaningful engagement.

Print and digital collaborating

Although online and offline advertising are two entirely separate entities, they can work well together, and some brands are already utilising such methods.

Take QR codes for example, more businesses are trying to audiences in the real world to their online solutions. As QR codes are unique and can entice people to be more inquisitive, they can drive immense traffic to online campaigns when printed on banners. Through this method of advertising, marketing departments can track success and gather data on users when they’re interacting with the code. With the data collected from campaigns like this, businesses can record contact information (such as email addresses) if users decide they want to opt-in.

When looking closer to news publications, many of them still offer printed versions of their product — blurring the line between print and digital. With an understanding of the influence they have online, they’ve been able to merge two channels together and to distribute stories to a wider audience.

Near field communication is another area that should be further looked into when it comes to the relationship between online and offline platforms. Essentially, near field communication is a type of technology that has the ability to connect two smart devices — often with the help of a print medium. For example, a section of a poster can be tapped with a mobile phone which will then take the user to the ecommerce site for a specific product.

Digital companies testing out print marketing

Online hospitality marketplace, Airbnb has made huge waves in the way that we now book our holidays. Predominantly a digital business with its own website and downloadable app, the company decided to launch its own magazine for registered hosts (those who advertise their property) which is around 18,000 people. This magazine included personal stories of hosts and their accommodation, encouraging interaction with the digital business through print. Although the magazine production has been put on hold since, it’s a good example of how an online business can promote its services elsewhere.

Remember those iconic Coca Cola bottles that had labels with your name on? The printed labels for the Share A Coke campaign allowed the drink manufacturer to become more personal with its customers and as a result, buyers then shared their bottles on social media which made it an integrated campaign.

As we can see, digital and print both play huge parts in the marketing of a business. But often, they can be most successful when they’re brought together.

Sources

https://www.jeffbullas.com/mixed-marketing-create-joined-print-and-digital-campaigns/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/heres-what-happened-to-pineapple-airbnbs-one-off-print-magazine-1449684006

GUEST BLOG: The secret sauce for measuring social media ROI
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By James Carroll, Digital Marketing Manager, Tableau

If you’re a digital marketer, social media is probably a key part of your marketing strategy. But if the idea of proving out the ROI of your social media presence to your marketing leaders keeps you up at night, you’re not alone. Research from DMA shows that “only 48% of marketers agree that social media gives them any return on investment”. Gathering and analysing social media data comprehensively and connecting it across all platforms to show the value of your social programs is no easy feat.

So how do you know if your team is measuring performance with the right social media metrics? To answer this, you need to understand what problems you’re trying to solve. Before diving into the data, you must have key performance indicators (KPIs) that support your objectives and align with revenue attribution models. Each social platform has unique audiences and definitions for metrics on engagement, reach, and more, as well as native reporting. So, before you step in front of senior leaders to report on social media performance, understand what you’re trying to accomplish with your programs and have clear goals in place.

Approach social media data with metrics in mind

When you’re determining which social metrics matter, be cautious of committing to KPIs that may not be measurable. If you don’t have access to the right data to back up a KPI, don’t plan to include these metrics in your goals until that data becomes available. Understand that some in-platform metrics help measure impact or influence on business goals—like reach, website visitors (returning and net-new), actions on your website or app, and the cost for those actions, such as cost per acquisition (CPA). Other metrics may require tying together a social post or ad impression and click with business-critical actions, such as: filling out a form, submitting credit card information, or buying something in-store.

Depending on the maturity of your analytics strategy, you may already be answering the below questions, but review them to frame your thinking and 2019 planning. Here are things to consider:

  • What are you using your social channels for? (e.g., grow awareness, convert leads, engage with clients and community, etc.)
  • What are your paid social goals? What are your campaign goals?
  • Can you measure success with platform data alone or do you need additional data sources?
  • Do you understand who your website visitors are? Can you compare them with your social followers?
  • Are you able to quantify the cost of acquisition and lifetime value for each customer?

Formal social metrics need data points to map back to and establish a method by which your stakeholders and leaders can track performance.

Social analysis is relative to analytics maturity

Once you’ve determined metrics that are aligned with marketing analytics goals, you’ll need to access and analyse social data to measure success. Sounds simple enough, right?

Viewing insights natively within Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook is straightforward. Analysing data and identifying trends across platforms is another story. If you’re trying to create a comprehensive view of performance so you can slice and dice the data, it’s necessary to export your social data outside the platform.

How should you approach deep analysis of your social data? Start by being honest about the maturity of your marketing analytics program. Early on in your journey, you should be able to track your basic performance and report by platform. As your analytics organization matures, reporting on your social data across platforms and campaigns should be happening on a regular cadence. Next, focus on gathering insights across platforms and attribute social data to benchmarks that inform platform ROI and plan your budget accordingly. If your social analytics program has the previous steps in place, you should be in a comfortable position to predict and forecast investments across channels and regularly report on the ROI of all your platforms.

For reporting, there is a variety of approaches also aligned with your analytics program maturity. Application programming interfaces (APIs) offer direct and automated access to your social platform pages and advertising data, allowing you to access all of this information in in one place. If you’re using third-party tools like AdStage, SproutSocial, or HootSuite, these platforms aggregate data and assist you in focusing on different priorities with their report templates.

Other APIs that connect with a BI platform, like Tableau, and social data sources help you access your data and create high-level, aggregate dashboards for your team, senior leadership, etc. When you create social media dashboards in Tableau with a live API connection, you have more control over the data and how you visualize it, customizing the view for your audiences to tell a compelling story. This particular set-up means you only need to create dashboards once and they will update automatically on a monthly or quarterly basis—depending on your reporting cadence. These dashboards offer quick insights into the performance of paid social ads, the paid social budget for the month, or anything else your marketing department is reporting on.

When comparing your platforms next to each other, look for macro trends, especially in different regions. Are fluctuations in performance seasonal, related to campaign launches, or caused by something else?

Monitor your cost per click or acquisition throughout the week and see if there are ebbs and flows that you can take advantage of—potentially optimizing your ads on a daily basis. As new trends and technologies emerge, you’ll need to prepare your strategy—and your reporting—to reflect these changes.

Understanding the clear goals you’re trying to achieve with your social channels and the business problems you’re trying to solve will ground your organic and paid social programs—and show your marketing leaders that you have data at the core of your social media analytics.

Has GDPR made marketers more data conscious?
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The introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May 2018 has undoubtedly disrupted inbound and digital marketing strategies.

From adding compliance overhead to the soaring cost of inbound campaigns and fear of non-compliance undermining confidence in outbound campaigns, marketers are struggling to meet revenue targets.

But GDPR has also served as a massive wake-up call: marketing teams have, finally, recognised the sheer inadequacy of existing data resources.

James Isilay, CEO, Cognism, welcomes a new generation of revenue focused, data-aware marketers who are confidently combining trusted, compliant data resources with Applied Intelligence to deliver focused, targeted outbound marketing campaigns that result in a significant revenue uplift…

Blessing in Disguise

Marketers have had six months to come to terms with the realities of a post-GDPR world, but as the dust settles it is not the fear of punitive fines that is dominating the agenda but the challenge of achieving ROI given the spiralling costs affecting every stage of the sales and marketing funnel.

From the addition of the Data Protection Officer to the sheer weight of compliance overhead now borne by marketing and the spike in PPC costs, the marketing budget has taken a massive hit. The logistics associated with meeting GDPR requirements for routine data cleansing, ensuring that contacts are registered and that any out of date records are deleted are without doubt a challenge for many companies.

Yet what has really taken many by surprise is the sheer inadequacy of existing sales and marketing databases – and the knock on implication for marketing campaigns. The fact is that approximately one-third of data degrades every year and most sales teams have been using data that is up to 60% out of date: recognising and addressing this fact alone will make GDPR a blessing in disguise for marketing teams.

Data Confidence

This new era of data awareness is, in many ways, long overdue. If companies want to maximise the value of marketing data resources, the number one priority has to be accurate and up to date information. That means ditching the spreadsheets and embracing a CRM platform to achieve better data control; and it means ensuring that any data provider is by default providing GDPR compliant data and can prove strong privacy and compliance credentials. But it also means recognising and addressing the speed with which data degrades: how is the business planning to ensure data is kept up to date, accurate and alive?

It is only when armed with a trusted, accurate, real-time and GDPR compliant data resource that a business can truly begin to transform marketing performance, and hence improve the revenue stream. Combining this trusted data resource with Applied Intelligence (AI) marketing can transform performance – from gaining more insight into customer personas to identifying purchasing triggers, and delivering highly targeted, highly effective outbound campaigns.

Global Compliance

Compliance to data privacy regulations is becoming a fundamental requirement for marketers globally – from Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) to the diverse interpretations of GDPR throughout Europe and state-specific demands in the US – and that is great news in raising data awareness and understanding. But no marketing team is rewarded for achieving regulatory compliance: it is driving revenue from those data resources that remains the primary goal. And with the cost of inbound marketing campaigns continuing to spiral, there are very real opportunities for those companies able to combine real-time, compliant data resources with AI to deliver highly targeted, highly effective outbound marketing to drive tangible revenue uplift.

Do you specialise in Lead Generation & Tracking solutions? We want to hear from you!
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Each month on Digital Marketing Briefing we’re be shining the spotlight on different parts of the print and marketing sectors – and in February we’ll be focussing on Lead Generation & Tracking.

It’s all part of our ‘Recommended’ editorial feature, designed to help marketing industry professionals find the best products and services available today.

So, if you specialise in Lead Generation & Tracking solutions and would like to be included as part of this exciting new shop window, we’d love to hear from you – for more info, contact Chris Cannon on c.cannon@forumevents.co.uk.

Here are the areas we’ll be covering, month by month:

Feb – Lead Generation & Tracking

Mar – Email Marketing

Apr – Digital Printing

May – Social Media

Jun – Brand Monitoring

Jul – Web Analytics

Aug – Conversion Rate Optimisation

Sept – Digital Signage

Oct – Brochure Printing

Nov – Creative & Design

Dec – Online Strategy

For more information on any of the above topics, contact Chris Cannon on c.cannon@forumevents.co.uk.

Digital Marketing Solutions Summit – The only B2B event you need this year
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We understand that as a senior marketing professional there are never enough hours in the day. So we recognise that you might be sceptical about committing to attending an event.

BUT, the Digital Marketing Solutions Summit really could be the best day you spend out of the office this year. You will:

  • Meet new suppliers and discover innovative solutions – and you’ll be provided with a bespoke itinerary of pre-arranged meetings, based on your own individual requirements
  • Learn new tips and discover insight via a series of seminar sessions
  • Network with like-minded senior marketing professionals

Plus, the Digital Marketing Solutions Summit is entirely FREE to attend. Simply register your VIP place here and we’ll look forward to seeing you on May 14th 2019 at the Hilton Canary Wharf, London.

You’ll be joining representatives from the likes of:

BNP Paribas
CitySprint
Clifford Chance
Coca-Cola
CompareTheMarket
Harbour Hotels
Interstate Hotels & Resorts
Kettle Foods
Macmillan Cancer Support
Orange Business Services
SofaSofa
Softomotive
The Berkeley Group
The Lalit London
Trend Micro
West Midlands Trains

… and many more

We have a limited number of VIP places. Simply click here to register your place.

For more information, contact Katie Bullot on 01992 374049 or email k.bullot@forumevents.co.uk.

Alternatively, if you’re a digital marketing solutions provider and would like to showcase your products and services at the event, contact James Howe on 01992 374067 or email j.howe@forumevents.co.uk.

UK marketing spend stagnates as Brexit takes its toll
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A six-year run of continuous overall UK marketing budget growth came to an end in Q4 2018, with a net balance of +0.0% of marketing executives signalling no change in budgets during the fourth quarter.

That’s according to the latest IPA Bellwether Report, which says that while some marketers reported growth (+16%), this was completely offset by others observing spending cuts (-16%).

In addition, roughly two-thirds of panel members reported no revision to their total marketing budgets. Evidence from some marketers highlighted some optimism for the coming year, with new product launches, expansion into overseas markets, digital transformation and technological development all expected to bring growth opportunities.

However, political and economic uncertainty caused by the ongoing Brexit negotiation process has dampened both business and consumer confidence, driving belt-tightening and restricting resources available to marketing executives.

The shift towards digital modes of advertising remained apparent during Q4, although growth moderated noticeably, as signalled by the net balance for internet falling to +2.1%, from +13.6% in the third quarter (within internet, search/SEO dropped from +5.8% in Q3 to -3.9% marking the first cut since Q2 2009; mobile advertising budgets were also revised down to -2.4% from +1.9% in Q3).

However, it was budgets for sales promotions that marketing executives enjoyed the greatest upward revisions for, with the net balance increasing to +3.8% from +0.6% in Q3. Events budgets also saw a slight increase (net balance of +2.6% from -1.1%), however panellists observed cuts to the remaining categories monitored by the Bellwether survey.

The first downward revision for two quarters was seen for main media advertising, which includes large-scale campaigns on TV and in newspapers. The net balance fell to -6.5% from +4.8%. Direct marketing (-5.6% from -7.4%), market research (-4.7% from – 3.7%), and PR budgets (-4.1% from +4.2%) were also areas of marketing that companies experienced a squeeze on spending.

Looking towards the 2019/20 financial year, preliminary data from the Bellwether panel indicated a near-neutral stance on overall marketing spend for the coming budget period. The proportion of marketers anticipating increased marketing expenditure (27%) was only marginally higher than that for those predicting cuts (26%), yielding a net balance of just +0.8%.

However, drilling down into the individual budget plans for each Bellwether category revealed a fairly negative outlook. A number of marketers expressed concern towards the adverse impact of Brexit-driven economic and political uncertainty on both consumer and business confidence. In some cases, there was evidence that the potential for a more challenging corporate environment was set to restrict financial resources available to marketing executives.

Paul Bainsfair, Director General at the IPA, said: “In uncertain political and economic times such as these, the understandable reaction for some advertisers is to lose confidence in brand building advertising and to think short term even to the point of heavily discounting their products and services. We’ve seen this on and offline in the run up to Christmas – and now see the impact in black and white in this latest Bellwether Report. We know from the research we have done into what builds and what destroys brands – and it is proven – that too much short-term sales promotion activity destroys brand value in the long term. Marketers need to weather this turbulent period and think ahead. Now is the time to be bold, to keep up their share of voice and, if they can, increase it to grow their share of market. Businesses that rely on the strength of their brands need to follow the general 60:40 (brand building vs activation spend) rule of thumb.”

Joe Hayes, Economist at IHS Markit and author of the Bellwether Report, said: “The slowdown in marketing budget growth seen in recent quarters culminated in Q4, as the six-year bullrun came to an end. Company-wide indecisiveness restricted the allocation of resources to marketers, as the wait-and-see approach to how the Brexit process will transpire appears to be the current strategy in place for many UK businesses. “The neutral stance on marketing budgets came in tandem with a first pessimistic outlook by businesses towards their own companies’ financial prospects for the first time since 2012, suggesting that top-level belt-tightening and plans to protect margins has seen marketing executives be given less discretion. Indeed, provisional data for budgets for the coming 2019/20 financial year indicate that downbeat stance seems likely to persist.”

James Goddard, Chief Executive, JJ Marketing, said: “This early part of 2019 is inevitably a time when uncertainty reigns but it’s no good standing still and weeping into your spreadsheets. For one thing, there remain areas of optimism, including digital transformation and the opportunities provided by technology. And, it’s now more important than ever for agencies to be able to react quickly to change. In the coming 12 months, expecting the unexpected will be crucial. Therefore, we need to focus on being flexible and innovative. Add strategy, creativity and accountability on top and taking advantage of a changing landscape will be more achievable than you might expect.”

Tom George, CEO, GroupM and Chair of the IPA Media Futures Group, said: “By the time the latest Bellwether report is published, we will know the outcome of parliament’s vote on the government’s Brexit proposal. Whether this provides any further clarity on a resolution is highly doubtful however. What is clear is that uncertainty is not the friend of economic optimism and the latest Bellwether sentiment reflects this.

“Advertising is also not immune to uncertainty and this is highlighted by a net balance of -6.5% for main media (a scale of decline not seen since 2009) and a softening in the positive sentiment for internet, search & mobile of +2.1%. The good news for the sector is that all commentators still report growth in ad expenditure for 2019 on the back of 6% growth in 2018 – our own GroupM forecasts predicts growth to 4.6% for 2019. Of course, what plays out over the course of the next few months may supress this relative optimism. To continue on a ‘glass half full’ theme, even the most pessimistic estimates I’ve seen for the impact of a no-deal Brexit scenario, don’t approach anywhere near the levels of decline for we witnessed in 2009. Watch this space.’’

Patrick Reid, CEO EMEA, Imagination, said: “As the expectation for brands to create more imaginative experiences grows, the current climate highlights the need for clients to work with a creative partner who can deliver effective, efficient and agile creative solutions. With exciting developments in technology, collaborative ways of working and more rigorous measurement, you can produce powerful experiences which deliver meaningful results despite the constantly evolving landscape.”

Pete Robins, Managing Partner, Agenda21 and Chair of the IPA Digital Media Group, said: “For once in a very long time, overall market pressures have even dented the growth rate of internet reacted spends. However, also worth noting that the prominence of businesses looking to continue or advance their digital transformation, could mean that once these initiatives are sufficiently progressed that growth in connected media channels will be at the forefront of their plans once the uncertainty in the market has acerbated.”

James Pais, IPA Scotland Chair and Creative Services Director at Frame, said: “Last year I commented that the Q4 Bellwether report would make for some interesting reading. I was trying to be optimistic here.

“Alas the uncertainty of Brexit has generated grave concerns and a lack of confidence which as a result meant that the findings in this Bellwether report have a rather pessimistic and downbeat outlook. The predicted reaction for advertisers to reduce their adspend in the later part of 2018 is evident in this report and to misquote D:Ream, things don’t look like they’re going to get better. There is a rather negative outlook to budgeting in 2019/20 with still further concern towards the adverse impact of Brexit on the economy and the effect it will have on both consumer and business confidence.

“So again, the 2019 Q1 Bellwether report will make for some interesting reading, by then hopefully we will have some clarity as to our new relations with the EU. As an optimist I want to be encouraged by the Office for Budget Responsibility projection of a bounceback in business investment, and the Bellwether prediction of an upward revision to adspend forecast for 2019, but I guess we will see in a few months, right?”