Flat Advertising

We just watched 'North by Northwest', Hitchcock's romantic, comedic, spy thriller with Cary Grant.

You sympathize with poor Cary Grant in this movie. He's an advertising executive in Manhattan, kidnapped, and roughed up by cold war spies who think Cary Grant is a CIA kinda guy.

It makes you long for the good old days when the model that one aspired to be was a debonair Manhattan executive with tons of dough and gorgeous women by the fistful.

Poor Manhattan advertising executives are feeling the pinch of our crap economy. We don't feel too sorry for them though, because we are sick of advertising, we are numb to advertising.

U.S. Advertising Spending is Flat in First Quarter 2008, Nielsen Reports

Advertising spending for the first quarter of 2008 remained essentially flat compared to the same period last year, according to preliminary figures released today by Nielsen Monitor-Plus, the competitive advertising information service of The Nielsen Company.

Of all the alleged indicators of the US economy, this is perhaps one of the most relevant. After all, we are consumers not people, and our tastes and purchases need to be ramped up through advertising, otherwise we might be left to our own self-destructive devices. Left on our own, we might even save our money.