Ad Spending Jumps 12.7% in 1st Quarter

Advertising showed no sign of slowdown in the first quarter as advertisers boosted their spending on traditional media by 12.7% to $22.2 billion, an industry report showed. The total compared with $19.7 billion in the first quarter of 1999, according to Competitive Media Reporting, a New York firm that tracks ad spending, and was led by drug companies, investment brokers and Internet-related firms. “Dot-com” companies and other Internet-related firms, advertising in traditional media, made the biggest jump, with a 410.7% leap to $413 million from last year’s first reporting period. Spending on ads for prescription medicines gained 73.2% to $592 million. Investment brokers’ spending rose 87.2% to $452 million in the latest period. Among individual companies, General Motors Corp. was the biggest spender, paying $669.9 million for advertising, up 6%, followed by Philip Morris Cos., up 26.3% at $427 million. Network broadcast television raked in the biggest share of advertisers’ increased spending, pocketing just over $5 billion, up 12% from the year-ago period.