A report from Nielsen indicates that ad spending in the United States fell 15.4% in the first half of the year, compared to the first half of last year. Preliminary estimates show that US ad expenditures fell over $10.3 billion to a total of $56.9 billion.
“While some of the larger categories have cut back spending, we see others that continue to raise the ante on their media investments,” said Annie Touliatos, VP for Nielsen’s advertising information services.
“What’s interesting is that we’re not just seeing a rise in spending for recession-friendly products like fast food restaurants,” added Touliatos. “We’re seeing a lot more promotion of technological innovations like smartphones, computer software, and consumer-driven web sites. These advertisers see potential for their products despite our stressed economy and are leveraging advertising to drive their success.”
Following is a look at the year-to-year change in ad spend, by media:
As you can see, Cable advertising was the only category to show any growth. Interestingly enough, major cable networks are working on taking advertisers’ campaigns online.
Here is a look at the top product categories, by ad spend:
Automotive ad spending was still significantly higher than the rest, even though it dropped by 31% year-over-year. Fast food ad spending saw a nice increase.
Outside of the top 10 listed above, Nielsen says there was significant growth among other major product categories, like multi-function mobile phones, cable TV services, websites, tax services, software, insurance, legal service, etc.
