NEW YORK No signs of client-spending cutbacks. That's the hopeful stance taken by the holding company bosses, even as evidence of a recession mounts. Well, two new studies involving marketing leaders paint a different picture -- and it isn't pretty.
More than three-quarters of the 202 U.S. marketing executives polled by Reardon Smith Whittaker said the economy has moderately to greatly affected their companies in the past six months, with just 23 percent saying it has had no effect. And 77 percent of nearly 100 global marketing chiefs expect their budgets to be flat or shrink this year, according to a Forrester Research report.
On average, the marketing budgets among Forrester's sample will decline 3 percent in 2008. Although 23 percent expect to spend more on marketing, they generally represent smaller companies and relatively small budgets to begin with. "The bullish marketers control only a fraction of the budgets that their bearish peers have -- an aggregate $55 million versus $5 billion," wrote Forrester analyst Jaap Favier. "This means that the largest advertisers are anticipating the largest cuts, resulting in an expected 3 percent average marketing spending decline in an economic downturn."
Favier declined to identify the companies represented in the report but said they cover a broad spectrum of categories -- from telecommunications to finance. The respondents steer their respective marketing departments and half are based in North America, a third in Europe and the rest in other parts of the world, according to Favier.
Reardon Smith Whittaker's domestic sample ranged from senior brand managers on up to chief marketing officers at companies such as Procter & Gamble, Novartis, L'Oreal, General Electric, Coors, Mattel, Kellogg, Shell, Kraft, Nissan, PepsiCo, Citigroup, General Mills, Nestl
