The nation's Top Ten advertisers sliced overall ad outlays 4.2 percent to $15.336B in 2014, according to Kantar Media.
No. 1 advertiser Procter & Gamble chopped spending 14.4 percent to $2.636B with the bulk of the retrenchment in magazines and digital display.
No. 3 AT&T registered a 12.7 percent cut in spending to $1.632B, while L'Oreal, No. 6, and General Motors, No. 2, posted drops at 8.3 percent to $1.425B and 8.2 percent to $1.648B, respectively.
Other declines were at Comcast (5.9 percent to $1.550B), Toyota Motor (5.7 percent to $1.196B) and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (3.1 percent to $1.133B).
Pfizer posted a solid 23.0 percent jump in outlays to $1.400B. Berkshire Hathaway (13.6 percent to $1.430B) and Verizon Communications (4.8 percent to $1.283B) followed.
Kantar reported that total TV spending received a boost from the Winter Olympics, World Cup and elections. That sector was up 5.5 percent.
Network TV showed a 2.5 percent advance with about 80 percent of that increase due to the Olympics. Cable enjoyed a 6.8 percent spurt as drug, telecom and movie companies hiked budgets.
Online display ads inched ahead 0.9 percent, despite a second-half slowdown. The WPP unit does not measure video or mobile formats.
Business leaders will face challenges in the upcoming year, some of which will come as a complete surprise, or beyond anyone's imagination.
Teneo has hired Philipp Grontzki, who is a 20-year veteran of corporate communications and financial journalism, as a managing director in its strategy and communications group.
Rowan Benecke, who co-founded Zeno Group and helmed Burson-Marsteller's tech practice, has joined McKinsey & Co as director of communications for North America.
BCW has named Golin's Matt Coldagelli EVP and leader of its corporate affairs practice in Chicago.
Abby Bailey, who headed corporate communications for Fedex in its Middle East, India and Africa region, has joined Teneo as managing director in Dubai.
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