For those that were lucky enough to hold onto their jobs, there was still a looming fear amongst advertisers that dollars were going to be pulled back, if not totally cancelled and we would be left with nothing but quick service restaurant and direct response television commercials to watch.

We didn’t have as many channels to spread our dollars back then, with the digital advertising world still in its infancy.

Fast forward to 2023 and we are on the cusp of yet another financial crisis. Banks are folding (how does a bank NOT have your money??), jobs are being cut by the thousands and tax expert and insurance commercials are dominating daytime TV.

But this time it’s a little different when we think about how a company will cut their ad dollars if needed. There was always an idea that the digital world would be safe when it came to those cuts and traditional media would be the area where we see dollars being pulled back. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

We are seeing cuts across the digital landscape to the tune of 2%. While this doesn’t seem like a cause for concern, keep in mind that early forecasts for the year were in the $3 billion (BILLION!) range, so any percentage means losses of big dollars.

This will certainly mean cuts across both the client and advertiser side, meaning it’s going to get a lot worse before we get a lot better.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series next week…

Image by Freepik