Tech marketing budgets to increase 6% in 2004

IDC projects IT vendor marketing budgets to increase by 6% across the IT industry in 2004. This indicates a strong turn-around in marketing spending relative to the average 1.7% decrease in budgets during 2003. Much of the increased spending is aimed at the objective of brand building. In IDC's survey, 56% of respondents indicate that increasing brand awareness is the top marketing challenge for their company. IDC's awareness-demand (A-D) ratio (the portion of each marketing dollar spending on awareness building versus demand generation) is trending upward from $.52 in 2003 to $.57 in 2004, further indicating companies' willingness to increase investment in awareness building.