Q4 Forecast: Cloudy with a Chance of Spending

If you’re a local business in a swing state, Q4 is gonna be awesome.  You’re not?  Well, fasten your seat belts.  You’re in for a bumpy ride for the remainder of 2012.

I say bumpy ride, because looking at ad spending as an economic confidence indicator, many large retail businesses are squeezing funds out of things like supply chain inefficiencies to afford to advertise their products.  That’s a sign of short-term uncertainty but with long-term optimism.

For example, GM, the second-largest advertiser in the U.S., is trimming budgets overall, but ponying up the dough on product launches – such as for the 2013 Cadillac ATS.

According to a National Retail Federation estimate, retailers spent almost $84 billion in back-to-school advertising looking to build momentum going into the crucial holiday season.

All in, this year’s ‘Golden Quarter’ appears to be one entered into with a lot of caution as industry looks leerily toward Washington.  Don’t be surprised if many businesses are putting useful capital aside until we all see how this ‘fiscal cliff’ thing shakes out.