Universal McCann: Robert Coen Presentation on Advertising Expenditures, Dec 2003

Bob Coen

The guru of online ad research, Universal McCann's Bob Coen, is doubtless the most widely cited source on ad spending across sectors. He does tend to underestimate the online sector (for example, he bases his direct mail estimates flatly on the DMA's highly suspect numbers, yet feels the need to lowball what the IAB projects), but nonetheless, it's refreshing to see that he sees the online ad sector as having grown at a 15 percent clip this year over last. He puts the total U.S. online ad spending for 2003 at $5.6 billion. The IAB, by comparison, has the industry at $5.1 billion just for the first three quarters of the year, and $6 billion for last year, which is almost certain to be less than it totals for this year. Lots more juicy details can be found in the report linked above.