A survey of Ireland’s marketing professionals by WPP group media planning agency EssenceMediacom has found that the main issues facing the sector are staff burnout, recruitment, working from home and measuring the impact of social media. As many as six in ten of the Irish marketers interviewed found the pace of work relentless, while 58 per cent said team engagement is more challenging due to working from home.
A huge number of marketing professionals expressed caution about social media advertising. An overwhelming 72 per cent said that social media platforms overclaim the impact of paid activity, while 57 per cent said they were cautious over digital platform audience data. No longer being able to measure social media engagement via cookies was flagged as a key concern for 62 per cent of the sample.
Four in 10 marketers surveyed said that recruitment was their biggest challenge, with many citing a lack of traditional marketing skills as a problem. The study found that 53 per cent agreed that Ireland had a shortage of experienced staff in marketing agencies while 43 per cent said there there was a lack of basic brand building skills.
ADVERTISEMENT
Enter at https://marketing.ie/about-us/marketer-of-the-year-awards/
Deadline: 5pm on Thursday, September 21st 2023
Spend
The research also found that the majority of marketing professionals are planning to spend more on social media, digital video and radio ads, while less spending is planned on newspaper, magazine and cinema advertising. The survey shows that while 58 per cent of all advertising spend is non-digital, there are clear trends towards companies spending more on online and digital ads. Spend on influencers and podcasts is increasing.
Radio and out of home are the only traditional forms of advertising seeing increased spends.
Ed Ling (pictured), chief growth and operations officer at EssenceMediacom Ireland, said the results show that the effects of the pandemic are lingering on, with the industry still trying to adapt to working from home and hybrid models coupled with ongoing shortage of talented staff. Also discussed was the problem with burnout and the fast-paced, relentless nature of marketing. Agency clients include Sky Ireland, Lidl and Opel.
