Information technology vendors plan to increase their budgets by 6 percent in 2004 compared with last year, according to a study from the IDC CMO Advisory Service, Framingham, MA.
The study, “Marketing Budget Planner 2005: Benchmarks and Key Performance Indicators,” shows a turn around in marketing spending versus the average 1.7 percent decrease in budgets during 2003, the study said.
The study was based on interviews conducted with senior marketing executives at 100 of the leading IT hardware, software and services vendors representing over $370 billion in IT revenues and more than $13 billion in marketing spending.
The study revealed that much of the increased spending is aimed at brand building. Fifty-six percent of respondents indicated that increasing brand awareness is the top marketing challenge for their company. IDC's awareness demand ratio — the portion of each marketing dollar spent on awareness building versus demand generation — is trending upward from $ .52 in 2003 to $ .57 in 2004.
