Most of us hardly need to be told we’re in a virtual advertising recession anymore. But the GroupM ad group in Sir Martin Sorrell’s WPP is rubbing salt in the wounds anyway – it says UK ad expenditure will be down 11 percent through 2009. That’s worse than Carat’s forecast last week of a 7.1 percent decline.
Media Week says GroupM will this week issue a report in which it drastically revises down its December forecast of a 5.6 year-on-year percent fall. A poor showing as the economy worsened in the fourth quarter of the year saw 2008 UK ad spend fall 5.5 percent. Carat said UK advertising will stabilise in 2010: