A new Association of National Advertisers (ANA) study this summer shows that 53% of ANA member respondents believe their overall marketing budgets will be reduced up to 10%, with almost a third saying it will be in the 11-20% range. What else is new? Isn’t marketing seen as a luxury in some organizations? Are you battling the Big Cheese to maintain your marketing budget?
Our own MarketingProfs guru and founder, Roy Young, says we need to make marketing matter to the CEO. I guess these ANA members are having a hard time doing that.
The study indicates what respondents plan to cut:
69% said ad campaign media budgets
63% said production budgets
63% are making their agencies cut internal expenses and/or identify cost reductions
63% said travel and expenses
61% said eliminating or delaying new projects
What about your company or organization? Is your budget getting cut back, too? Where will you tighten your belt? What are the essentials to maintain no matter what?
Thanks to Aimee Stern of Stern Communications for sending these stats via an ASAE listserv.
Tags: ad campaign, marketing budget, media, production, study
Not cutting but reallocating dollars to programs with stronger ROIs or expected better ROIs.
Ah, the annual give-back. If there’s a silver lining, at least it looks like the give-back is beginning in September instead of April. Be thankful for small victories.
Marketing is an expense “in the books”–too bad it’s also seen that way in the eyes of the CxOs…
I serve businesses as a marketing and a communications consultant and agree with the cuts lists in your post. Each of those cuts represents an area with zero or no returns.
Consultantcies such as mine have been calling for those cuts for years. Next generation marketing must be launched and that is where budgets should be focused. Next generation marketing places more focus on multi-functional alignment centered on inbound marketing, with monies being transferred from outbound marketing.
Budgets will also be aligned and integrated between all customer touchpoints, including sales, marketing and the call center. This is way overdue.
Thanks for the comments.
Kathy, does this mean that you’re going to focus more on electronic marketing?
Paul, how do we change those internal paradigms about marketing?
Lewis, do you believe that next-generation marketing applies to all organizations?
Lewis,
This is very typical in times of major corporate bailouts and sluggish economies. You think it would be the opposite.
We are about to increase our marketing budget, however, we are going to be very careful how we allocate it.
The conventional wisdom is that when the economy is soft companies cut their marketing budgets. To me that seems strange since, even in tough times, you need to keep the customers coming in.
Cutting marketing seems as nuts as cutting sales.
Levon and Neil. It is strange, but oh, so common. Those companies that stand out now should experience benefits in the marketplace.