• by Masha Geller , December 3, 2001

Two leading industry forecasters said today that they expect an upturn in advertising spending by the fourth quarter of next year.

At the UBS Warburg media conference in New York, London-based Zenith Optimedia said it had shaved back its forecasts, reducing an expected 2002 decline to 1.3%, but had not made major changes to its outlook.

"After three big downgrades in a year, our forecasts have stopped growing gloomier. We expect at least the beginnings of advertising recovery in 2002," Zenith said in its annual report.

Zenith is forecasting an 8.7% slide in U.S. spending in real terms adjusted for inflation this year, or a nominal 6%. Next year, it said U.S. advertising spending would fall 3.5% in real terms, or a nominal 1.5%.

The firm expects the U.S. to show three years of decline in advertising spending, with a full recovery not until 2004.

Meanwhile, Universal McCann's star forecaster Robert Coen is more optimistic. Coen had earlier been forecasting a rise in U.S. advertising spending of 2.5% this year, while the rest of the industry was looking at negative figures.

Today, he told the conference that he expected U.S. ad spending to bounce back in 2002 by 2.4% to $239.3 billion, after a 4.1% fall this year.

Coen said he expected U.S. national advertising to rise 2.5% in 2002 to $145.9 billion, after an expected 3.9% fall this year. U.S. local advertising was expected to climb 2.3% to $93.4 billion after a 4.9% fall this year.