August maintains strong recovery in marketing budgets

Marketing budgets continue to expand strongly in Europe and the Americas while Asia Pacific is seeing growth accelerate, according to the latest figures from WARC Data’s Global Marketing Index (GMI).

Developed by WARC, the GMI is a monthly indicator of the state of the global marketing industry based on current conditions among practitioners. An index value above 50.0 indicates growth, while below 50.0 indicates decline. Practitioners who complete the survey receive the full analysis report.

Marketing budgets had an index value of 69.3 for Europe in August, with the Americas just behind at 68.5. Both are stable from July, which had the highest rate of growth in the GMI’s 10-year history following significant cuts in 2020.

Asia Pacific has seen a slower rise in recent months following growth at the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021. However, the increase in marketing budgets is now accelerating – August’s index value of 60.1 is up from 58.4 in June.

The latest report also shows improving conditions for out-of-home and radio marketing. Digital and mobile recorded the strongest rate of budget growth in August, albeit at a slight decrease from July, followed by TV.