• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, December 8, 2009

After a year that most of the advertising industry would just as soon forget, Madison Avenue's three leading forecasters this morning will release revised outlooks calling for stronger ad spending in 2010. But one, Interpublic's Brian Wieser, thinks it will be markedly better than his rivals at Publicis' ZenithOptimedia and WPP's GroupM units think it will be.

Wieser, who is global director of forecasting at Interpublic's Magna unit, predicts North American ad spending will rise 1.0% in 2010, the only one of the three to forecast any growth in North American ad spending next year. GroupM's Adam Smith predicts it will decline 4.0%, while ZenithOptimedia's Steven King thinks it will decline 2.4%.

And while all three agency executives expect worldwide ad spending to rise next year, Magna's Wieser is by far the most bullish, predicting global ad spending will rise 6.0% in 2010. GroupM's Smith predicts it will rise 0.8%, while ZenithOptimedia's King anticipates it will grow 0.9%.

Of course, Wieser uses a different methodology than the rest of Madison Avenue. Instead of calculating advertising growth based on estimates of what advertisers spend, Wieser computes it based on the advertising revenues derived by publicly reporting media companies, trade associations and other sources.

That likely accounts for some of the difference. The rest, however, may simply be the relative degree of optimism among the agency executives. All three will release their official new outlooks this morning during UBS' Media Week conference in New York, during a panel discussion in which they will likely explain their differences.

But advance copies of the forecasts released to MediaDailyNews and other members of the press show the executives agree on some things, including that 2009 was one for the record books, with total ad spending declining at double-digit rates.

Another consensus is the fact that digital media, especially online, will lead the advertising economy out of the recession.

Revised Ad Forecasts
	-----------2009----------		----------2010----------
	N. America	Worldwide	N. America	Worldwide
GroupM	-7.8%	-6.6%	-4.0%	+0.8%
Magna	-16.0%	-15.0%	+1.0%	+6.0%
ZenithOptimedia	-12.7%	-10.2%	-2.4%	+0.9%
Consensus	-12.7%	-10.6%	-1.8%	+2.6%
Source: Company estimates. Consensus = average.