IPA reports growth in Web marketing

UK spending on Internet-related marketing activity increased last quarter, while marketing budgets for advertising and sales promotion were revised downwards for the first time since 2004, reports the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising.

This week’s IPA report says traditional above-the-line marketing spend has come under pressure, despite being ‘set higher than the previous year’ at the start of 2005.

While direct marketing spending was unchanged from the previous quarter, the stability of on-line spending will come as a boost to digital media design. Moreover, the anti-cyclical movement in Internet budgets is, say some, a sign of a structural change in the way clients allocate resources.

WPP chief executive Martin Sorrell said the developments ’emphasised the shift in focus by clients to direct, interactive and Internet marketing’.