Released yesterday, the report conducted by London, UK-HQ’d NTC Research (based on information from a panel of 270 senior marketing execs in Canadian companies), shows that current marketing budgets – led by Internet and main media advertising – were revised up in Q2, following a strong gain in marketing spend in the 2006-07 accounting year. But even though budgets for the year were initially set higher than 2006, the report states that ‘a slight drop in business optimism’ is reflected by the fact that the overall upward revision was the weakest since Q1 of 2006. Budget increases were commonly linked to higher sales revenues and business expansion plans, including new product and brand development.