Top ad spenders, in-house talent, retail sales: 5 killer stats to start your week

We arm marketers with all the numbers, statistics and data they need to prepare for the week ahead.

killer stats, ad spend

1. UK’s top ad spenders tighten their belts

Procter and Gamble (P&G) has overtaken Sky to reclaim its position as the top spender on traditional advertising in the UK. P&G spent £186.5m in 2018, down from £196.4m in 2017 but enough to make it the best spender. Sky’s expenditure declined 30% year on year to £124.2m.

Unilever fell out of the top three advertisers for the first time in five years coming in at number seven with spend down 29.2% to £82.9m in 2018. McDonald’s came in third, having increased spend by 28% to £122.6m in 2018, ahead of BT on £109.3m.

Other significant movers include Amazon, which increased advertising spend by 18% to £87.5m, Compare the Market (up 30% to £62.2m) and Camelot Lottery (up 40% to £53.3m).

In supermarket retail, Asda climbed into the top 10 after spending £68.8m in 2018, up from £60.5m in 2017. Sainsbury’s dropped from the top 100, with Tesco, Morrisons, Aldi and Lidl also reducing their spend in 2018.

Source: Nielsen

2. Marketers put focus on in-house, rather than agency, talent

Marketers are increasingly focusing on in-house, rather than agency, talent when it comes to media capabilities as large advertisers invest more in their internal teams.

Just 14% of survey respondents who work brand side said they have high or very high confidence in their internal teams being able to meet the needs of the marketing department, down from 22% in 2016. Agency side, this number is just 17%.

Nearly a fifth (19%) of CMOs says there is greater need for internal talent investment, versus 18.5% who say agency talent is the main issue. That is a shift from two years ago when the quality of the agency talent was the top issue at 29%.

Brands now have more confidence in their agency teams, with 35% saying they have very high confidence in those teams to handle whatever the media market throws at them.

In-house media planning is of particular concern, with brands internal capabilities rising by 6% since 2016. Other areas of focus include ecommerce, cited by 54% of respondents, data (33%) and insight (28%).

Source: ID Comms

3. Marketers say GDPR has not limited their ability to meet customers’ needs

More than half (52%) of marketers say GDPR has had no impact on their ability to meet customers’ demands, up from 37% in September 2017. And 26% now believe the regulations have helped them serve customers better.

The percentage of marketers who believe the benefits of GDPR have outweighed the costs doubled from 16% to 32%. And the number of marketers who say GDPR will negatively impact their organisation in the long run has declined from 56% in the previous survey to 41%.

Additionally, 78% believe the UK should adhere to existing GDPR legislation after Brexit, with 11% wanting stricter rules.

However, when it comes to sales there is still some concern among 38% of marketers who believe the new laws have negatively impacted them while 23% claim their sales have improved post-GDPR.

Source: DMA

4. Retail sales return to growth in January

Retail sales volumes climbed 1% in January following a 0.7% decline in December, as discounting clothing and food sales helped boost sales.

Year-on-year growth hit 4.2%, the highest since December 2016, helped by sales of clothing and footwear rising 5.5% as prices fell 0.9%. Food sales returned to strong growth of 3.2%.

Online sales slipped to 18.8% of total sales, from 19.8% in December, due to a decline from non-food retailers.

Retail sales volumes jumped by a monthly 1.0 percent after their biggest fall in December in a year-and-a-half, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, far above the median forecast in a Reuters poll of economists for a 0.2 percent rise.

Source: ONS

5. Pubs and and restaurants suffer January sales hangover

Pubs and restaurants in Britain saw like-for-like sales decline 1.8% in January 2019, compared to a year ago, following a strong Christmas.

Both pub and restaurant operators experienced a decline during the month, although pubs performed slightly better with like-for-likes down 1.4% compared to 2.5% for restaurant chains.

Like-for-like trading in London fell in line with the rest of the country, down 1.9% compared 1.7% to across the UK. But there was a notable contract between the performance of managed pubs and group-owned restaurants in the capital, with the former down just 0.5% against a more significant 4.1% sales decline for restaurants during January.

For the rest of the country, the difference in performance was less stark, with pubs’ like-for-likes down 1.6% and restaurants down 2.0%.

Source: CGA’s Coffer Peach Business Tracker

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