• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, July 11, 2022

Despite worries in some quarters of a recession, Stagwell CEO Mark Penn says advertising should weather the storm.

Penn told Yahoo Finance that not only is advertising still growing, the continuing shift to digital and performance marketing makes the industry more resilient to bumps in the economy.

“TV is the big loser,” Penn said. Most online advertising is performance oriented and increasingly is addressing consumers directly and is therefore “insulated from a recession.”

All things considered, he added, 2022 “looks pretty good for marketing and advertising.” Factors boosting this year, he said, are a bounce back in the travel category and what he believes will be a relatively strong holiday season.

Asked about Netflix’s exploration of an ad-tier service, Penn said he expects a “strong reception” from advertisers. The streaming service, he noted, “took a lot of eyeballs out of the ad space,” and that its strong content offering even with ads will attract viewers.