• Paid Content, Monday, June 13, 2011 12:02 PM

If we are experiencing another economic slowdown, it hasn't hit online. So assures paidContent based on new data from Kantar Media, which finds that display advertising continued to rise 14.6% in the first quarter of the year.

"After cable TV, which is even more firmly established and grew 31.9 percent in Q1, and Spanish-language magazines, which is still an emerging area and was up 22.3%, display ad dollars came in a number three in Kantar's ranking of spending growth," paidContent points out. For its part, Kantar credited the rise in display to higher spending from automakers, travel-related marketers and media companies.

"With Japan's troubles impacting the auto space, that could mean less spending for the second half of this year, but it shouldn't dent display too much even in the worst case scenarios," according to paidContent. In terms of the specific auto companies, GM, the leader in ad spending, increased its total media expenditures by 1.3% to $612 million, while Chrysler and Toyota and Ford upped their respective spending by 58.6%, 30.3% and 27.3%. Overall, automotive was the top category with $3.7 billion of spending, up 23% collectively.

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