• Brandweek , Monday, September 18, 2006 11:34 AM

When DaimlerChrysler was looking to cut marketing costs this year, print took it in the neck. While the company's network TV spending fell 12 percent for the first half of this year--to $422 million--print was down by more than one-third to $133 million. And Chrysler is not alone. Newspaper and magazine buys by auto companies are off 24 percent this year through July, while online spending has increased by half. A really extreme case is Volkswagen, which cut its print spending by three-quarters and relied more heavily on TV. "What has happened for us and with our new agency is that there tends to be a bigger creative idea, and that idea has driven the media," says Kurt Schneider, general manager for creative content at Volkswagen. He says there was no decision at the top to cut back on print spending; rather, it was driven by a strategy.

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