• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, December 4, 2001

At the annual Media Week conference recently, Robert J. Coen, senior vice president and director of forecasting at Interpublic Group, Universal McCann, said advertising spending will be slow coming back, despite a first quarter boost by the 2002 winter Olympics and upcoming mid-term elections. Coen said U.S. ad spending will drop 4.1% this year to to $233.7 billion, from $243.7 in 2000, and will climb back only 2.4% to $239.3 billion in 2002. Big advertisers should look for bargains on media buys in this slow period, he said.

Both Coen and John Perriss, chief executive of Zenith Media, London agreed that usually the U.S. rolls into a recession first, followed by other world markets, but this time around, overseas economies followed the U.S. quickly. Perriss pointed out that the picture overseas is not much better than in the U.S. Worldwide ad spending will drop 3.4% this year, with nearly every world region dropping, he said. As world economies emerge from recession, (global) spending in 2002 will grow 0.8%.

Interestingly, Perriss noted that in the 1990-91 recession, nine markets went into recession in 1990 and another ten in 1991, while in 2001, 23 markets slid into recession nearly at once.

You can find out more at AdAge.com