Our CEO Patrick Reid, shared his thoughts on the latest Q4 IPA Bellwether Report.

"The emergence of the Omicron variant introduced a further element of uncertainty in this quarter, which along with supply-chain disruption unsurprisingly impacted on activity. However, the future looks positive with 38% of Bellwether respondents expecting to increase their budgets in events and experiences with marketing executives anticipating a much stronger 2022/23 - something we’ve witnessed across our global client portfolio. We strongly believe as economies recover there will be increasing opportunities to create meaningful experiences that provide ROI and increase the lifetime value of customers – be that virtual, hybrid or in person."

From the IPA Bellwether Report:

A net balance of +6.1% of companies upwardly revised their total marketing budgets at the end of last year as recovery efforts from the pandemic continued. That said, amid the emergence of the Omicron strain of COVID-19, heavy supply-chain disruption and strong inflationary pressures, total marketing budget growth slowed from the third quarter of 2021 (net balance of +12.8%). Nevertheless, the latest data was still a robust result by comparison to recent years and signalled the second-strongest improvement since the opening quarter of 2019.