It's not you, sweetheart

A USA Today article dubbed ad spend for the first half of 2008 "sluggish," with the worst yet to come.

The auto industry is reportedly "retrenching" on spending, and outlook for retail, financial and telecommunications advertising is "negative for the second half of the year," said BMO Capital Markets analyst Leland Westerfield.

Meanwhile, Interpublic Group's Magna unit downgraded 2008 ad spend estimates to two percent growth in the US — from 3.7 at the beginning of the year.

"It'll be 2010 before you see any real improvement overall," said director Robert Coen of forecasting at Magna.

Unexpected cost hikes in June also affected consumers' propensity to spend in July, sending Wall Street off on a depressing start this morning.

SVP Jon Swallen of research at TNS Media Intelligence attributed the downturn in ad spend to the transition of media budgets to the 'net. And according to the most current PRWeek/Manning Selvage & Lee (MS&L) Marketing Management Survey, over 75 percent of senior marketers expect to increase spend across new media and online initiatives over the next year despite the poor economy.