A net balance of +7.3% of UK marketers revised up their marketing spend in the first quarter of the year, despite the geopolitical uncertainty.
The IPA published its Q1 2026 Bellwether Report today (16 April), reporting that 26.8% of panellists increased their marketing spend in the first quarter while 19.5% decreased it, resulting in the strongest numbers in almost two years.
It’s also a marked increase since Q4 2025, when the net balance was 0%.
Which is odd because macro-economic prospects have declined since the beginning of the year. According to the IPA, S&P Global Market Intelligence has revised down its forecast for the UK’s GDP growth in 2026, from 0.8% to 0.5%.
And yesterday, the International Monetary Fund warned that the conflict in the Middle East could result in a global recession, and that the UK was more vulnerable to increases in energy costs than any other G7 country.
Despite the fraught conditions, S&P Global has seen fit to revise up its forecast for UK adspend growth in 2026, from 1.5% to 2.5%. What’s going on?
GDP and adspend have been out of sync for years now. Thinkbox’s head of research, Anthony Jones, has previously argued it’s because smaller businesses treat social and search media as online rent that must be paid, as opposed to tools they can use at their discretion to create or harvest demand. Consequently, advertising investment figures tell us increasingly little about companies’ confidence.
But it’s becoming apparent that even larger businesses are advertising through the pain. Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun told analysts during the company’s earnings call on Tuesday that he was confident his clients would continue to spend despite the geopolitical uncertainty.
‘After Covid, after the war in Ukraine, after tariffs, after inflation, and now with the Middle East conflict, I would say that our clients […] are used to navigating uncertainty,’ he said. ‘It’s incredibly strange to see how much they can take and continue to go on, because they know that if they cut marketing spend, they will lose market share. That would be very expensive and very difficult to win back. This is why we have not seen any significant reduction in marketing budget in Q1.’
Similarly, the IPA’s Bellwether data shows that it’s not just online advertising spend that is robust. Events attracted more marketing investment than any other category (+14.7%), PR was strong (+6%) and video advertising was also net positive (+5.7%). Budgets for audio, press and out-of-home advertising continued to decline, however.
And 28.7% of the IPA’s panellists said that they expect marketing budgets to increase over the course of the year, compared with the 25.6% that anticipate a reduction. Still, when asked about the prospects for their industry this year, 35.3% of respondents were downbeat, while only 14.4% felt optimistic.
On the plus side, the indication is that brands are finally treating advertising like an investment rather than a cost.
