• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, December 14, 2003

Despite a modest gain in business-to-business ad dollar volume in October, ad pages in the business press continued to slide. As a result, the industry's trade group, American Business Media, shaved another percentage point off its projections for potential B-to-B ad spending in 2003.

Business marketers boosted their ad outlays 3.3 percent in October, but that was not the kind of year-end rally that would have been needed to meet the "1 percent to 2 percent" B-to-B ad spending forecast issued last month by the ABM. The November forecast was down from a projection of "1 percent to 3 percent" in October.

"This was anticipated," stated ABM president Gordon Hughes. "We believe that the fourth quarter will end up at around 3%, which will bring the full year up 1% from 2002."

Through the first 10 months of 2003, B-to-B ad spending is up only 0.4 percent, according to the Business Information Network data. Ad pages, which many on Madison Avenue consider a more dependable measure of advertising vitality, were down 2.8 percent in October and 3.6 percent through the first 10 months of 2003.

The downward year-end momentum for B-to-B ad demand represents another mixed signal for the overall ad economy. Because B-to-B is deemed an important lagging indicator of an overall advertising recovery, the erratic performance of business media ad spending may indicate further instability in the overall advertising marketplace.

Business-to-Business Ad Pages, Dollar Trends

             Ad Page   Ad Dollars

January        -5.4%        +2.9% 
February       -5.6%        +2.4% 
March          -5.0%        +5.8% 
April          -8.4%        -9.7% 
May            -5.9%        -1.1% 
June
+0.9%        +4.9% 
July           -9.7%        -7.9% 
August         -6.3%        -3.5% 
September      -2.2%        -0.5% 
October        -2.8%        +3.3% 

10 Months      -3.6%
+0.4% 

Source: Source: Business Information Network, American Business Media, TNS Media Intelligence/CMR.