• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 17, 2008

With the “r” word looming in the background, Carat has revised its global ad spending outlook downward for 2008, taking its total ad spending estimate down to 6.0% for the year, down from its previous outlook of 6.2%. That’s the bad news. The good news is that it’s not that big a downgrade. And more importantly, it’s being driven mainly by cuts in old guard media like newspapers. Online ad spending will grow 23.3%, according to Carat. That’s down slightly from 27.2% in 2007, but it’s still far from recessionary.