The indicators are saying 'slowdown.''' Since the mid-'90s, the advertising industry has seen strong growth, often in the high single digits each year. But in recent months that streak has cooled, and experts are now revising their original forecasts for a smaller gain. But few industry leaders, watching the current trials and tribulations of dot-com companies, are banking on the Internet to bail them out in 2001. Big clients have already factored the changing climate into their business plans. And even under these terms, the auto maker did not guarantee that it would maintain its former spending levels.
Experts expect other car companies to be similarly stingy in the coming year.
The economy may be the biggest threat to the ad industry in 2001, but it's not the only one. Labor politics also loom large for ad agencies. Barely off a 175-day strike by advertising actors, the industry now faces a potential strike by TV and film actors and writers, whose contracts are up in the summer of 2001. While not directly connected to the ad industry, if these writers and actors fail to come to new terms by late May, the fall television season will be threatened and the value of ad time will slip. For the past two years, agencies have enjoyed a huge windfall from the Internet economy.