UK consumers are planning to spend £17.9bn on gifts and personal purchases, the equivalent of £334 each on average, during the peak shopping season between Black Friday in October and the post-Christmas sales in January. But for brand marketers entering the ‘Golden Quarter’ with high expectations and increased budgets, this needs to be tempered with consumers planning to cut back and switch in order to save money. A new report published today by Epsilon, a global leader in data and identity, investigates the gap between consumer intent and marketer expectations, based on a survey of 2,000 UK adults and 200 marketers. AdvertisementDespite UK ad spend predicted to pass £50bn this year, growing at roughly seven times the pace of GDP, audiences are not growing at the same pace, according to the ‘Advertising under Pressure: into the Golden Quarter and beyond’ report. This is creating a highly competitive media landscape in which it’s far harder for marketers to get in front of the right audiences, who are themselves making much more considered purchases.