• by Wayne Friedman , November 21, 2008

Big Auto is begging for a bailout. So it's no surprise that automotive marketers dropped an overall 10% in their ad spending through the first half of 2008 to $6.1 billion--with only the import brands improving on average overall.

According to Nielsen Monitor Plus, Toyota Motor Corp.--the No. 2 auto in terms of media spending--was at $999 million, the same level as 2007. No. 4, Honda Motor Co., was 13% better than a year ago--to $621.6 million. Other smaller imports: Daimler AG was up 48%, Volkswagen was 23% higher and Mazda was 4% improved.

However, the big U.S. automotives have been in major cutback mode--with possibly more to come in the second half of the year. The biggest, General Motors, slipped 6% to $1.2 billion. Ford Motor and Cerberus (home of Chrysler) had it worse: down 22% each to $954 million and $593 million, respectively.

Not all imports were in positive territory, either. Nissan Motor was down 15% to $513 million, and Hyundai Motor was off 17% to $244 million.

Television still dominates media market share for the autos. Of the total $6 billion spent on car and truck ads, more than $5 billion (83%) were placed in television, while $640 million (11%) were placed in magazines.

But TV was down overall, with the biggest hits coming for national spot TV--the largest media spend segment for autos. The category endured a 7% decline; network TV, the second-biggest category, was off 10%. Only cable TV showed gains--up 5%.

The only other medium to see gains during this period was local magazines, which were 23% better than a year ago to $4 million.

National magazines--the fourth-biggest segment--continued to spiral down, dropping 23%, the same rate of decline for local newspapers.

Here's the full list of media segments for the automotive industry: