LONDON: A tailwind of apprehension is sweeping the Atlantic as the credit crunch metastasizes into recession or worse. Even the legendarily calm Sir Martin Sorrell got emotive. "The smell of fear is incredible," he said of a recent visit to New York. "People are terrified."
He predicted that the inexorably southbound economic situation will worsen the economic prospects for an already austere outlook in 2009.
He sees no light at the end of the tunnel until 2010 at earliest, cautioning that "the next fifteen months are not going to be easy".
But Sorrell's adland peers are less morose.
"We're seeing some signs of a slowdown in fourth-quarter spending, especially in the auto and financial sectors, but it's not heavy and nobody is panicking," comments Publicis Groupe chairman/ceo Maurice Lévy.
While BBDO Worldwide ceo Andrew Robertson is ambivalent: "You have to look at the situation client by client and category by category," he said, ruefully reflecting that his client list includes two major crunch casualties: AIG and Bank of America.
As to the auto category: "[It] will suffer as it gets harder for consumers to borrow money to buy cars. For some other sectors, the problems will be confined to Wall Street rather than Main Street."
Meantime, on a small European offshore island, Marketing Services Financial Intelligence editor Bob Willott admitted: "At first, I thought we were going through a normal cyclical downturn. Now I think the scenario is much less predictable, which reinforces the need for agencies to keep their balance sheets as strong as they can."
Also in the UK, Lord Tim Bell, chairman of WPP Group's Chime Communications, claims the impact of the credit crisis has so far been negligible.
"I've been waiting for my numbers to drop off the cliff but they haven't," he claimed. "People are still shopping and repaying their mortgages," he says.
And Mike Hughes, director-general of the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers, predicted that small development projects agreed at the beginning of the year are likely to be postponed as advertisers revisit their spending plans and focus primarily on their power brands.
He predicted that the inexorably southbound economic situation will worsen the economic prospects for an already austere outlook in 2009.
He sees no light at the end of the tunnel until 2010 at earliest, cautioning that "the next fifteen months are not going to be easy".
But Sorrell's adland peers are less morose.
"We're seeing some signs of a slowdown in fourth-quarter spending, especially in the auto and financial sectors, but it's not heavy and nobody is panicking," comments Publicis Groupe chairman/ceo Maurice Lévy.
While BBDO Worldwide ceo Andrew Robertson is ambivalent: "You have to look at the situation client by client and category by category," he said, ruefully reflecting that his client list includes two major crunch casualties: AIG and Bank of America.
As to the auto category: "[It] will suffer as it gets harder for consumers to borrow money to buy cars. For some other sectors, the problems will be confined to Wall Street rather than Main Street."
Meantime, on a small European offshore island, Marketing Services Financial Intelligence editor Bob Willott admitted: "At first, I thought we were going through a normal cyclical downturn. Now I think the scenario is much less predictable, which reinforces the need for agencies to keep their balance sheets as strong as they can."
Also in the UK, Lord Tim Bell, chairman of WPP Group's Chime Communications, claims the impact of the credit crisis has so far been negligible.
"I've been waiting for my numbers to drop off the cliff but they haven't," he claimed. "People are still shopping and repaying their mortgages," he says.
And Mike Hughes, director-general of the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers, predicted that small development projects agreed at the beginning of the year are likely to be postponed as advertisers revisit their spending plans and focus primarily on their power brands.
Data sourced from BrandRepublic (UK); additional content by WARC staff
