Marketers’ Confidence Drops Due to Consumer Spending

Outlook on consumer spending drops the Marketers Confidence Index from 131 to 122

The Marketers’ Confidence Index dropped by nine points from 131 in July 2018 to 122 in January 2019. The report—sponsored by Kantar Consulting and the AMA—finds that the drop was due to marketers losing confidence in consumer spending.

The Marketers’ Confidence Index is an online survey that asked 255 AMA newsletter subscribers a series of questions. Most respondents—41%—are at the VP or director level. In January’s survey, 24% say that consumer spending in the past six months decreased; in July’s survey, only 14% of marketers said that consumer spending in the previous six months decreased.

For the coming six months, 17% say they expect consumer spending to decrease, compared with 7% who expected spending to decrease in July.

Though marketers are less confident about consumer spending, they remain confident in their ability to grow. The survey finds that 56% of marketers expect growth, a slight improvement from the July survey. Marketers also feel as though they have similar, albeit slightly less, influence than those surveyed in July. In July, 71% felt that they had influence, while 65% felt that they had influence in the most recent survey.

Budgets have remained mostly even in the past six months. Marketers spend the most in creative (24%), media placement (22%) and product maintenance and support (17%). If marketers had to cut their budgets, 21% say that they would first cut media placement.