Universal McCann: U.S. Ad Spending Staggering, and Dot-Com Marketing Budgets Slip Too

UniversalMcCann’s Rober Coen put out a report this week that reiterates what we’ve already been hearing about the U.S. ad outlook and digital’s role in it. Namely, things are looking grim for the former and peachy for the latter.

It’s not quite that simple. Yes, U.S. ad spending in 2006 grew a less-than-expected 3.9 percent, leading the company to lower its 2007 growth forecast to 3.1 percent. And Internet ad growth meanwhile was up 16.7 percent in Q1 2007, more than any other category. Still, many categories posted year over year gains, some considerable, in television and magazines. By Q1 2007, however, many national marketers’ TV budgets had declined. And of course, newspaper classifieds tanked. ‘Nuff said about that.

The most severe impact on ad budgets has come from shifts in media spending by local advertisers, “although there is definitely slippage in the relative importance of advertising in terms of big national companies’ total marketing and communications spending,” the report said.

Interestingly, consumer advertising by dot-com marketers is expected shrink this year for the first time since 2002. Universal McCann believes that’s partly because they’re putting their budgets into search.

The report also discusses ad spending shifts by country and globally. You can download it here.