• by February 21, 2001

While several of our recent Briefs depict advertising expenditures in the U.S. as uncharacteristically sluggish at best, Reuters reports that Japan's total advertising spending grew 7.2 percent to a record $53 billion last calendar year. The advertising agency Dentsu Inc. said that this is the first spending increase in three years.

The agency reported that financial firms, and those in the information and telecoms sector, had stepped up efforts to cultivate consumer demand and improve the brand image of products and services. Advertising spending by telecoms grew 33.6% for the year, followed by a 28.2% spending increase in the financial industry, accounting for almost half of the spending increase.

Other category spending increases in newspapers, magazines, radio and television totaled about $34 Billion last year, Dentsu said. Advertising spending on television showed the biggest increase of the four, accounting for $18 billion and an 8.1% rise in newspaper ad spending brought it to a total for the year of $11 billion.

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