Around 74% of marketers expect their budgets to either remain steady or grow over the next year according to the inaugural Oliver Marketing Pulse survey which was carried out by RED C and published by the Business Post.
The survey shows that 45% of those marketers that took part said that their budgets would remain steady. Another 22% believed that budgets would increase by up to 10% while 7% reckoned that they would grow by more than 10%.
Against this, however, 15% believed marketing budgets would decline by up to 10% while another 5% believed they might decline by more than 10%.
Another positive note was sounded in the survey by 94% of marketers who expressed confidence in the outlook for their business over the next year. This was in sharp contrast to the 42% who expressed confidence in the wider economy.
The survey also noted that the greatest area of spend for larger businesses is above the line TV and radio, while for small companies it was in areas like SEO and search while digital above the line was also an area for growth.
Somewhat surprisingly, 59% of those surveyed said that spend was directed at brand building while 35% was spent on brand purpose and other ESG-related headings.
Social and content marketing (42%), SEO and search (33%) are the areas that marketers most expect to spend more on in the coming year, according to the survey.
The survey also reveals that over three quarters (77%) of Irish marketeers conduct some aspects of marketing in-house, with the most common areas to be conducted in house being social media optimisation, copywriting and graphic design.
When it came to the Metaverse and Web3, over 7 in 10 Irish marketers say they are not confident about marketing in the metaverse and that they have no strategy to enter it. Nonetheless, most plan to enter it at some point in the future, the survey noted.
According to Mark McCann, chief executive of Oliver Ireland: “The first wave of the OLIVER CMO pulse data has clearly illustrated the appetite for education around all aspects of Web3 marketing. We hope that this FREE to download data and RedC analysis will be helpful to all of our marketing industry colleagues both here in Ireland and also across the OLIVER global network.
“There have been many claims of next generation marketing as digital convergence has transformed all our lives over the past two decades. The challenge for everyone now, both agency and client side, is to collaborate and go on the Web3 journey together. Ultimately “the internet of value” will offer many opportunities for the evolution of NPS towards more of a Brand Utility Score. The challenge facing both brands and consumers is how to extract incremental value, simply and safely,” he says.
According to Richard Colwell, managing director of RedC: “The first in a series of Oliver Marketing Pulse surveys reached a robust audience of over 100 senior marketing professionals in Ireland, including CMOs and marketing directors at major multinationals and large Irish companies. It provides a real insight into current attitudes to key marketing issues in Ireland today, including general trends such as expectation that budgets will grow in the next 12 months with above the line mass marketing most likely to benefit, and also a deep dive into what appears to be something of a lack of readiness for marketing in the metaverse.”
To download a free copy of the survey click HERE
