Confidence in the European advertising business increases marginally in Q2/2019
Brussels, 1 August 2019 – Business confidence in the European advertising and marketing sector has taken a marginal turn upwards, according to the latest European Advertising Business Climate Index, issued by the European Association of Communications Agencies (EACA).
The report, based on a sample of nearly 1,500 advertising and market research companies across Europe, shows that business confidence in the ad industry has increased from +2.7 to +3.4 over the last quarter (see Graph 1).
Graph 2 illustrates developments over a 5-year period.
The results are driven by positive expectations of demand for the next three months (from +7.8 to +14.3), bouncing upwards after a continuous decline in the previous three quarters.
The expectations of the prices also appear to be rising to a small extent from +10.1 to +10.2 between Q2 and Q3/2019.
On the other side of the coin, employment developments and expectations seem rather negative. The evolution of employment has been sinking since Q2/2018, declining incrementally from +6.2 to -7.4 over the last year. Expectations are still on the plus side, but now at their two-year bottom of +3.1. At the same time, inadequate and/or lacking labour forces are estimated to account for 12.2% of factors limiting the business in Q3/2019, up from the previous figure of 7.1% in Q2/2019.
The countries that have experienced the biggest increase in their overall confidence index are the Czech Repulic (from +20.1 to +36.7, which is the highest level of all the participating countries in Q2/2019) and Italy (from -0.6 to +18.1).
The countries at the other end of the spectrum are Cyprus (from -21.9 to -69.8, which is the the lowest level of all the participating countries in Q2/2019) and Croatia (from +20.4 to +8.5).
“The latest results of the Ad Index show that more work could be done to ensure the advertising industry’s access to talent. At EACA, we address this through „Inspire! By EACA“, which is a single European hub with education and training opportunities for all stakeholders in the communications industry. It is one of our key priorities to help develop talent and boost dialogue and co-operation between businesses, students and academics,“ says Tamara Daltroff, EACA’s Director General.
Click here to access all the previous press releases of the European Advertising Business Climate Index. In order to get access to the full reports, please get in touch with EACA on info@eaca.eu.
For more information, please contact: Sofia Karttunen (Tel: + 32 2 740 0712, E – mail : sofia.karttunen[at]eaca.eu )
About the Advertising Business Climate Index
The Advertising Business Climate Index builds on responses provided by advertising and market research companies across Europe for the Business and Consumer Survey of the European Commission (DG ECOFIN). For the advertising and market research companies, the latest total sample size was 1,438.
Every month, companies fill in a standardised questionnaire answering different sets of questions with a simple scale of responses: increase” (+), “remain unchanged” (=), “decrease” (-). The numbers, expressed in the graphs and the press release, are balances. The balances are obtained after a percentage of negative answers are subtracted from a percentage of positive answers.
Countries featured in the index are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom. Finland, Luxembourg and Hungary do not provide data.
About EACA
EACA is the voice of Europe’s communications agencies and associations, promoting the economic and social contribution of commercial communications to society. Our members comprise advertising, media, digital, branding and PR agencies as well as their national associations – together they represent more than 2,500 organisations from nearly 30 European countries that directly employ over 120,000 people.
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