U.S. Ad Spending Falls 3.7%, Biggest Drop Since 2001

[marmar]

And think of how much it would have dropped without the Geico caveman or that annoying woman from the Progressive Insurance commercials! :scared:



U.S. Ad Spending Falls 3.7%, Biggest Drop Since 2001 (Update1)

By Sarah Rabil

Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. advertising spending fell 3.7 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, the biggest decline since 2001, as automakers and phone companies cut marketing budgets as the economy struggled.

Spending in the first six months of 2008 dropped 1.6 percent, including a 0.6 percent gain in the first quarter, New York-based market researcher TNS Media Intelligence said today in a statement. Advertising slowed on every medium in the second quarter compared with the first, TNS said.

Consumer spending in the third quarter will probably be the weakest since 1991, according to economists surveyed this month. In response, advertisers are shifting marketing dollars to the Internet, cable television and syndicated TV to target more specific audiences, Jon Swallen, senior vice president of research at TNS, said in the statement.

Spending rose 8 percent on Internet display ads and 3.1 percent on cable in the first half, while newspaper and radio continued to decline. Ads on network TV fell 2.4 percent. National newspapers declined 9.5 percent, while local newspapers dropped 7.1 percent.

U.S. automakers, the largest group of advertisers, cut spending 11 percent to $6.48 billion in the first half. Carmakers have cut marketing for 12 consecutive quarters, TNS said. Phone companies reduced ad outlays by 8.9 percent. The top 10 industry categories spent $36.3 billion in the first half, a 0.7 percent decline from the year-earlier period.


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a6yBA50FdY6A&refer=home

[whistle]

1. Advertising could disappear as far as I'm concerned and we would all be

...better off