Ad forecasts call for a Sunny 2004; prognosticators Coen ups his rise to 6.9% from 5.2%, Perriss calls bump more like 5.1%.(Marketing & Advertising)(Illustration)(Industry Overview)

Multichannel News, December, 2003 by Reynolds, Mike

NEW YORK -- Ad spending in the U.S. should grow at a healthy pace in 2004. But the rate of that growth depends on which prognosticator you put stock in. Robert Coen, senior vice president and director of forecasting at Universal McCann, and John Perriss, CEO of Zenith Optimedia, both put forth their projections at the UBS Warburg Media Week Conference here on Dec.

8, the same day Merrill Lynch & Co. revised its forecast. Minus any major terrorist activities, all are projecting that 2004--aided by allocations for the Summer Olympics and the political arena, most notably the presidential campaign--will be the best year for ad spending since the record levels recorded during 2000. Coen, the Madison Avenue seer, predicted that U.S. ad spending would...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.