• January 20, 2003

Business-to-business advertising is still recovering from a huge hit in the telecommunications and technology areas. But figures for November, released by American Business Media, indicate that b-to-b ad spending may be poised for growth. Overall, ad dollars were up 1.6% compared to November 2001, while pages were down 4.5%. Year-to-date spending decreased by 15.2% and pages by 15.9%. Seven categories showed improvement in ad spending in November 2002 compared to the same period the year before. The Travel sector led the way, with a 42.7% jump in ad dollars. Automotive was up 18.2%; Horticulture & Farming up 12.2%; Home & Building up 10.5%; Drugs & Toiletries up 9.8%; Computers up 1.9%; and Services, Direct Response & Classified up 0.7%. The remaining categories were down: Finance, Business & Advertising by 2.5%; Telecommunications by 42%; Software by 8.7%; Manufacturing by 0.2%; Retail by 0.6%.