Many bullish about gloom and doom

More than a third of marketers believe that the UK will be in recession in 2008, yet they remain "surprisingly" bullish about their own organisations' prospects.

Marketers are becoming increasingly gloomy about the UK economy, but still have hope for their own business, says the latest research from the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

The Chartered report, published in today's Marketing Week says the number of marketers who expect general economic conditions to worsen over the next 12 months has risen substantially since the previous survey in September last year. It’s not just a creeping climb up the charts. The percentage has gone from 40% to 57% in just a year.

There seems to be a silver lining in the midst of the gloom and doom. Even with things appearing bad for the market overall, marketers say they are optimistic about their own companies.
More than a third, 39% to be exact, are confident that performance of their own organisation will improve over the next 12 months, 41% saying it will stay the same and only 17% believing conditions will worsen.

The spending on marketing continues to rise as well. Spending accounts for an average of 7.7% of an organisation's turnover, up from 6.6% in the last survey. Small businesses are spending even more. Their spending figure was 8.6% for those with turnover under £1m, and 8.8% for those with turnover between £1m and £10m.

A third of marketers suggest staff numbers will increase and only 10% expect a cut in the size of their organisation's marketing function.

Ipsos Mori polled more than 2,000 marketing professionals between March 27 and April 14 for the survey. CIM undertakes the Marketing Trends survey twice a year.