P&G tops poll by spending almost £200m on ads in UK

The figures were compiled by Marketing magazine using Nielsen Media Research, and appear in its Top 100 UK advertisers feature this week.

Orange and Masterfoods have slipped out of the top 10 after cutting their advertising budgets by 14.2% and 17.1% respectively. BSkyB has leaped from 21st place last year to number 10 this year by boosting its advertising budget by 53.4% to £64.47m.

Of the top 10 advertisers, Ford and BT slashed their advertising budgets most severely over the past year, with BT cutting 15.8% of its budget to spend £81.56m, making it the UK's fourth biggest advertiser.

Ford cut 16.3% from its budget, coming in at number eight on the list, with spend of £66.32m. Last year it was the fifth biggest advertiser.

Overall spending for the top 100 advertisers combined was up by 3.3% to £3.6bn. The figures showed that 43 of the top 100 advertisers reduced their expenditure and 57 increased their budgets. Twelve advertisers, including savings bank ING Direct and Guinness, hiked their spend by 30% or more.

Top-spending UK advertisers in 2004

1. Procter & Gamble - £199.5m
2. COI Communications - £159m
3. L'Oreal Golden - £95.2m
4. BT - £82.5m
5. Lever Faberge Personal Care - £73.4m
6. Reckitt Benckiser - £70.2m
7. DFS - £69.3m
8. Ford - £66.3m
9. Nestle - £65.8m
10. BSkyB - £64.4m

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