In the survey, the broker received responses from 17 advertisers of the largest national advertisers, 70% of which said that they do not plan to reduce ad budgets for 2003; 18% expected budgets to remain the same, whilst 12% expect a decline.
No actual gross spend figures were indicated, so the survey does not paint a very clear picture of the extent of confidence in industry growth.
However, it also found that 70% of respondents are not planning on exercising their cancellation options for television ads booked in the US upfront market. This does indicate that a reasonable amount of confidence is returning to the market, as weak conditions would probably result in a higher proportion of cancellations to commitments.
