Why Interpublic has stripped billions from the ad economy
Joe Mandese
Interpublic, the source of Madison Avenue's official industry growth estimates for over half a century, has radically changed the way it calculates advertising and how it categorises media spending, in the process substantially downgrading the size of the advertising economy.
The move coincides with a changing of the guard at Interpublic from long-time forecaster Bob Coen to his successor, Brian Wieser. Instead of using the kind of 'bottom-up' brand-spending approach that Coen, and many of his agency peers, have used for years, Wieser has shifted to a 'top-down' method...
