Ogilvy Mather Chairman Sees Uptick in Ad Spending

Marketers are ready to spend money in 2011, buoyed by the economic turnaround that's finally reaching the advertising business, said Shelly Lazarus in an exclusive interview with Beet.TV.

The chairman of Ogilvy & Mather spoke to Beet.TV at the Bloomberg Media Summit. She told us that clients are feeling "more optimistic about their business." She added, "They're asking more questions and taking more initiatives."

They're also boosting their budgets, including in online media and video, but she cautioned that budgets are still somewhat tentative and only being created on a monthly or quarterly basis, not a yearly basis yet. "They want to be able to pull back should anything happen," she said.

Lazarus' report falls in line with a report released this week from WPP's Kantar Media that ad spending continued to recover in the fourth quarter of 2011, marking the fourth quarter in a row that ad dollars rose over the same period the year before. Overall dollars were up 7 percent for the fourth quarter, Kantar said.

Daisy Whitney

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