Marketing is defying the doomsters, says WPP

2nd Jun 2011 13:52

Reports of the demise of the marketing industry are woefully premature, judging by a new update from the world's biggest company in the sector WPP, which saw a sharp rise in revenues in the first four months of 2011.The US continues to see strong growth and the UK is doing well in spite of the economic pressures, according to the company."The world continues to move at very different speeds, with revenues in the BRICs countries up over 17% in the first four months, and the Next 11 up almost 14%, showing the strongest growth, followed by the United States and the United Kingdom," the company said. "In Western Continental Europe, France, Spain and Belgium remain the most challenging, with Japan the only market in Asia not showing growth."Chairman Philip Lader took aim at the 'doomsters' who attribute marketing expenditure to vanity rather than the pursuit of profit and think that marketing is history and brands are dead."If ever such an analysis was going to be tested and found to be true, it would have been over the last few years," he said, concluding that "however painful in part these last few years have been, they have delivered a powerful vindication of the value of the services our sector provides."---RG