Ad Spending Picking Up, Chief of No. 4 Agency Says : Marketing: Bruce Crawford, president of Omnicom Group, predicts that it will accelerate even more.

Car makers, financial-services groups and other advertisers have stepped up their spending the last few months and are showing signs that they will spend more heavily later this year, a top U.S. advertising executive said.

“In the United States, we didn’t see much strength in the first quarter,” said Bruce Crawford, president of Omnicom Group Inc., the world’s fourth-largest advertising company. “We’re seeing strength in many areas this quarter.

“My guess is that in the fourth quarter we will see a significant revenue strengthening,” Crawford said.

Magazine publishers are enjoying strong business from advertisers, with automotive companies and financial services groups stepping up spending sharply, he said.

Job recruitment advertising, a specialty of Omnicom--whose agencies include globe-straddling BBDO Worldwide and DDB Needham Worldwide--has yet to pick up. “But that tends to lag,” Crawford said.

Crawford’s upbeat assessment of advertising spending echoes projections by McCann-Erickson Worldwide’s Robert Coen, the industry’s most prominent forecaster. Coen expects U.S. advertising spending in 1992 to rise 5% to $132.67 billion.

The forecasts come at a crucial time for advertising and the media. Advertising fell 1.7% in 1991, the steepest drop since World War II.

When companies’ sales and profits dipped, they cut back on advertising and left television, newspapers and magazines with a severe revenue slump.

Crawford said that while U.S. advertising will improve, growth outside the United States will be rapid.

“It will continue in Europe and Asia,” he said. “We will see better times in South American countries than we have in recent years.”

Omnicom and its biggest U.S. rival, Interpublic Group of Cos., are better positioned for profits in the 1990s than many foreign rivals, especially the struggling British groups Saatchi & Saatchi and WPP, Crawford said.

“It’s important to be big but decentralized,” Crawford said of Omnicom.

The company, which last year had revenue of $1.24 billion, has clients that include Pepsico, Volkswagen, McDonald’s, Chrysler and Delta Airlines.

“The day of the mid-sized agency is gone and past,” Crawford said. “Business is more and more worldwide. Major clients tend to go with major agencies.”