Advertising’s Growth Likely to Carry Into ’98

NEW YORK — Next year is shaping into another good year for advertising, although the gains aren’t likely to be as great as they were this year, one of the country’s leading advertising forecasters said Monday.

Robert J. Coen, a senior vice president at McCann-Erickson in New York, predicted domestic advertising in 1998 to rise to $198.4 billion, up 6.2% from this year.

In 1997, U.S. advertising spending increased 6.6% over the previous year to $186.8 billion. Coen said he underestimated this year’s growth by a full percentage point.

“Advertising in 1997 was better than expected,” said Coen, who presented his annual forecast at the PaineWebber Media Conference. “I’m a little cautious about 1998, but it’s still looking to be a good year for advertising.”

Coen’s predictions were in line with others made at the conference. John Perriss, chairman of Zenith Media Worldwide, said worldwide advertising will grow 6.8% this year to reach $299 billion. Spending next year will increase 6.4% to $318 billion, he said.

Coen said the Winter Olympics and beefed-up political ad budgets will boost ad spending in 1998. “We do have a good economic climate for the next year, so we can be optimistic about ad growth,” Coen said.

However, instability overseas, particularly in Asia, is likely to affect the worldwide advertising market. In his report, Coen said “it is now clear that overseas ad growth is trailing that of the U.S. and with a weakening of a number of overseas currencies, it is now apparent that the U.S. is the main engine moving worldwide advertising spending.”

Advertising expenditures in all overseas markets are expected to rise 5% to $236 billion in 1998.

In the United States, total national media rose this year, with print media budgets growing faster than those of the broadcast media.

Local advertising also rose far more in 1997 than had seemed possible a year ago, increasing 6.4% from last year.

Next year, Coen predicts total local advertising will grow 6.1%, while total national media will see gains of 6.3%.