• by Joe Mandese , June 5, 2020

On the same day that Wall Street is rallying on a better-than-expected U.S. jobs report for the month of May, the ad industry has its own positive metric signaling a rebound beginning in May.

"We think that April increasingly feels like the bottom," Pivotal Research Group analyst Michael Levine writes in a report sent to investors this morning.

Citing a proprietary tracking study of ad executive ad-spending sentiment, Levine writes that the net result is an upswing beginning in May, which is actually earlier than other recent tracking studies have suggested.

The finding is an earlier indicator of an ad rebound than other previous tracking studies, which predicted an ad industry rebound would no begin until the third quarter.

"The linearity of the quarter appears to be much better in May, with expectations for continued rebound into June," Levine explained, adding: "We will be waiting to see how June shapes up, as well as color around second half outlook before refining our estimates, but numbers are likely going higher."

Explicitly, Pivotal asks its panel of ad executives whether they believe the ad-spending cuts had bottomed out each month, and the percentage indicating it has rose six points to 57% in May vs. only 51% in April.

Moreover, ad executive projections on their year-over-year ad-spending changes indicates that the percentage citing declines peaked in April and has moderated considerable for June, with slightly more than half (54%) projecting declines in year-over-year ad spending for the last month of the second quarter.