Ad Economy Rebounds, Turns In Biggest February Ever

• by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, Yesterday

After crashing seasonally in January, demand for U.S. advertising soared to an all-time high for any February on record, according to the latest monthly edition of the Ad Market Tracker, a collaboration of MediaPost and Standard Media Index benchmarking ad volume based on a pool of actual spending data from most of the big agency holding companies.

The index, which was benchmarked at 100 in January 2009, soared to a 247 in February, a rise of 52 points from January of this year. On a year-over-year basis, February rose 46 points over the same month last year, and recorded the highest ad-spending volume ever for the month.

The spike in demand did not benefit all media equally. National TV ad volume actually fell three points from January to an index of 163 in February. On a year-over-year basis, national TV ad-spending volume rose six index points.

Digital media recorded its highest volume ever in February, rising to an index of 563 -- a gain of 76 points from January and 35 points from February 2016.

Powered by Standard Media Index, the Ad Market Tracker indexes the movement of U.S. ad market volume on a month-to-month basis. Data represented in the index is derived from actual spending by ad agencies representing approximately 80% of all U.S. agency spend. Baselined to a value of 100, the index is intended to be a simple way for readers to visualize the supply and demand of ad spending overall, and across the major media.