U.S. Adspend Sees Modest Increase

NEW YORK: Total advertising expenditures in the U.S. for the first nine months of 2011 increased 1.5 percent from the year-ago period, reaching $104.7 billion, according to Kantar Media.

The latest figures from Kantar showed that spending growth slowed during the quarter, up 0.4 percent compared to last year. For television, spending on cable networks increased 6.5 percent during Q3 and 9.9 percent for the first nine months. Network TV saw its first quarterly gain of the year, with Q3 expenditures up 0.2 percent. Year-to-date spend was down 5.7 percent. Ad spending for Spanish-language television soared 18 percent during Q3 and syndication TV was up 14.8 percent in the period. Spot TV was the only segment to lose ground, down 5.7 percent during July to September and down 2.7 percent for the nine-month period.

“The cautious optimism for the advertising market at the beginning of 2011 has been replaced by the statistical evidence of progressively slowing growth rates,” said Jon Swallen, the senior VP of research at Kantar Media North America. “From +4.1 percent in the first quarter, to +2.8 percent in the second quarter and now a barely palpable +0.4 percent for the July to September period. During Q3, an expanding number of the largest marketers became even more conservative with their ad budgets and these reductions have neutralized the healthy spending growth occurring among mid-sized advertisers.”