The BBC is cutting its £100m-a-year marketing budget by 25% in a move that is likely to mean the end of high-concept corporate branding campaigns such as "Perfect Day" and "This is what we do", MediaGuardian.co.uk can reveal.

Licence fee-payers will also see an immediate reduction in BBC on-air promotions and billboard campaigns, with the BBC understood to have cut the marketing, communications and audiences division's budget of around £100m by £20m for the new financial year, which began at the start of this month.

Further cuts over the next three years up to 2012-2013, when the current licence fee period ends, will see this marketing budget reduction rise to 25% in real terms, according to senior BBC sources.

Large-scale corporate marketing campaigns such as the "Perfect Day" promo from the late 1990s and the more recent "This is what we do" adverts would be hardest hit by the savings drive, according to one senior BBC insider.

The cuts are part of savings ordered by the BBC director general, Mark Thompson, who last month said that a further £400m needed to be saved by the corporation over the next three years to balance its books.

MC&A's budget funds all the BBC's on-air promotional campaigns, print and billboard advertising, as well as cinema advertising and corporate events.

Current high-profile campaigns include the on-air promotion of the BBC iPlayer with the strapline "Making the unmissable unmissable" and another for the new series of BBC1 drama Ashes to Ashes.

The BBC began ramping up its marketing budget and activity nearly 10 years ago under former director general Greg Dyke, who believed the corporation needed to promote itself and its output more aggressively in the ever more competitive digital media world.

High-profile marketing campaigns since then have included initiatives to promote major BBC1 dramas such as Spooks and Doctor Who.

Last May, the BBC launched a glossy promotion for Antiques Roadshow and its high-definition channel that featured presenter Fiona Bruce as an action hero saving an expensive vase.

The "Perfect Day" campaign 12 years ago predated the Dyke-era BBC's new focus on marketing but is one of the best remembered of the corporation's promotional efforts, featuring celebrities including Bono, Elton John and David Bowie singing the Lou Reed song of the same name, with the strapline "The BBC – You make it what it is".

This was followed nine years later by another notable BBC corporate branding marketing push with the slogan "This is what we do".

As part of the ongoing process of cuts in marketing, the BBC announced in February that it would not be renewing its deal with Digital Cinema Media for theatrical promotion of its programming in a bid to target youth audiences.

However, the savings from this will be on top of the eventual 25% overall marketing savings according to a senior BBC source.

A BBC spokesman said: "No organisation is immune from the financial crisis so we are scrutinising all of our spending. Whilst it's important we do communicate and explain the services we offer, we have already reduced spend on marketing and we do intend to go significantly further still in cutting costs."

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