After Two Slow Years, an Industry Rebound Begins

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/business/media/03adco.html?_r=1&ref=business
Television advertising, whether through integrated-brand campaigns like Microsoft’s or otherwise, has been one of the bright spots as the advertising industry begins to recover from the devastating effects of the recession and marketers experiment with a variety of new ways to reach the audience.

During the financial crisis and its aftermath, most advertisers reduced spending in virtually all forms of media, even those that had been enjoying strong growth in ad revenue. Now, a recovery seems to be taking hold on Madison Avenue and conditions are widely perceived as improving.

According to data from Kantar Media, advertising expenditures for all media for the first half of 2010 increased 5.7 percent from 2009 to about $63.6 billion. Television advertising led the pack in spending because of an increase in demand from the automotive and retail markets, and political advertising.

Spending on advertising in local newspapers showed a significant decline over the last 19 quarters, with a 4.6 percent decrease for the first half of 2010 compared with the same period in 2009, according to data from Kantar Media.

For the first time, advertisers are projected to have spent more on online ads than on newspaper ads in 2010, according to data by eMarketer.

“The bad economy has actually accelerated the shift to digital advertising,” Geoff Ramsey, the chief executive of eMarketer, said in a statement. “Online ads, especially search ads, are increasingly seen by many marketers as a more reliable bet than print ads, which are often difficult to tie to a measurable financial result.”

For brands like Microsoft, Web analytics and research are driving much of the investment into digital media.

Pharmaceutical Makers, Travel Firms and Hollywood Have Yet to Restore Cuts to Marketing Budgets

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703791804575439533156807488.html?mod=dist_smartbrief
Recent earning reports from top media companies show U.S. advertising spending is returning with a bang. But not every industry is increasing expenditures, a sign that media and ad companies have some ground to make up before they fully recover.

Industries such as travel, motion pictures and pharmaceuticals have cut ad spending during the first five months of 2010 compared with the year-earlier period, according to Kantar Media, a WPP PLC company that tracks ad spending across TV, print, radio, outdoor and some online.
Ad outlays by travel and tourism companies decreased 9.7% to $1.8 billion during the period while spending by motion picture companies fell 7.5% to $14.7 billion, Kantar says.

A full rebound will take time, says Jon Swallen, Kantar's senior vice president of research.
"It's a two step process," Mr. Swallen says. "Step one is a reversal from declines to increases and the second step for advertisers is to figure out how aggressively do they expand."

Overall, the U.S. ad market is expected to grow 1.1% this year to $149.9 billion, predicts ZenithOptimedia, a media buying firm owned by Publicis Groupe SA.

It has been a quicker-than-expected comeback from one of the advertising world's worst droughts in decades. Ad spending plummeted 12.3% last year, according to Kantar. But the estimated spending for 2011 is still well below the level of 2007, when companies shelled out $177.6 billion on U.S. ads, according to ZenithOptimedia.

Car markers such as General Motors Co., financial services companies and consumer product companies such as Procter & Gamble Co., have helped fuel stronger earnings for media and ad companies by significantly raising their ad expenditures.

WPP Chief Says Ad Markets Improving

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704911704575326513992645070.html
Markets have improved across regions though, with the biggest turnaround in the U.S., where organic revenue growth has accelerated, Sir Martin said. The recovery in Western Europe is still slower though and is likely to remain slow for a while, he added.

There are some clouds on the horizon... people are starting to be nervous again," he said, adding however that there are no signs yet that such new fears are impacting WPP's business. "The caution is a good thing though because when there's caution, people do something about it."

Last month, WPP acquired the entire issued share capital of Midia Digital and I-Cherry, two digital agencies in Brazil, specializing in digital marketing and search marketing respectively. "We'll continue to do such things," he said.

100 Leading National Advertisers: Ad Age

Top 100 Outlays Plunge 10% but Defying Spend Trend Can Pay Off

Here's the good news for CMOs, media and agencies: 26 top marketers bucked the trend and boosted 2009 advertising even as spending for the 100 Leading National Advertisers plunged 10.2%. Among those with the guts to spend more, 70% saw a U.S. sales increase -- double the success rate of those whose spending declined.

http://adage.com/article?article_id=144555

Among the Top 100 advertisers, one in four spent more, betting on opportunity in the Great Recession.

Aegis Closes Digital Shop Farfar in Sweden

Staff at Farfar today were toldthe legendary Swedish digital ad agency is closing, five years after the four founders sold it to Aegis Group and it became part of the company's Isobar digital network.

The last of the four founders, Matias Palm-Jensen, quit in March, speeding up an exodus that had already started for Farfar staff. Drained of much of its senior talent, the agency is expected to be wound down over the next four or five months as client projects are completed, and it will be shut down for good this summer.

http://adage.com/globalnews/article?article_id=143186

Omnicom CEO John Wren: 'Worst of the Recession Behind Us'

http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=142032

Despite another double-digit profit decline last quarter at Omnicom Group, CEO John Wren believes the ad industry has finally made it through the worst of the recession.

"As economies improve, we believe the worst of the recession and its impact is behind us," Mr. Wren said on the company's fourth-quarter earnings call this morning. "While not all of our clients have finalized their 2010 budgets, we anticipate that many will at least modestly increase spending in the second half of this year."

Spendthrift to Penny Pincher: A Vision of the New Consumer

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126100996572894719.html?mod=dist_smartbrief&mg=com-wsj

The economy appears to have begun recovering after the worst recession in half a century. But businesses ranging from shoemakers to financial services to luxury hotels don't expect American consumers to return to their spendthrift ways anytime soon. They see consumers emerging from the punishing downturn with a new mind-set: careful, practical, more socially conscious and embarrassed by flashy shows of wealth.

"We seem to be at a cultural inflection point that we haven't seen since World War II," said Jim Taylor, vice chairman of market researcher the Harrison Group. Last month it surveyed 1,800 affluent Americans and found that 48% think they could suffer major financial losses in the future. "People are getting used to being careful, and I don't know how you undo that," Mr. Taylor said

Martin Sorrell: vicious price competition

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=118803

The lingering effects of the global economic recession have led to "vicious price competition" among media services shops, including at least two situations in which agencies have personally guaranteed the media prices paid by their clients, noted Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, the world's largest buyer of media.

Speaking at the UBS Media Week conference in New York, Sorrell did not disclose the names of the media shops, but said at least one of the deals -- which he described as "giving guarantees on media pricing beyond the fees" the agencies receive -- has led to a lawsuit by a client seeking to enforce the guarantee.

"It's been denied, but I would rebut the denial," Sorrell said, calling the practice "extremely dangerous in my view. It's particularly dangerous if we see media price inflation."
He said that's likely to happen, despite the fact that media suppliers have sought to control their margins by cutting costs; there already is some evidence of media price inflation. For example, network TV scatter prices have surged relative to the prices advertisers paid during last year's upfront marketplace in the U.S.

Sorrell said the media price guarantee practice was one of several "short-sighted" steps being taken by agencies, media companies and clients alike to deal with the pressures of the global economic recession. As far as WPP is concerned, "media continues to be the really tough part of the business."

He cited the incessant pressure from client procurement departments to put greater pressure on agency fees, as well as the prices they pay the media.

Sorrell characterized such advertising marketplace behaviors as irrational, and attributed them as reactions to the near economic collapse that happened last year. Also, that many companies have simply been seeking to remain in business, as opposed to developing long-term strategies to grow their businesses.

He began his talk by shaking his head at the giddiness of some media companies reporting revenue declines of as much as 25%.

"How can you defend that the minus 25% is an acceptable solution? Or that you get some sort of joy from reporting numbers like that?" Sorrell emphasized later during the question-and-answer portion of his presentation. "In three years, you're out of business."

Sorrell did say that the marketplace appeared to have improved in November, but that it is not clear how sustainable that growth might prove to be.

He described the turn as being "more, less worse," and even suggested that the characterization would be "mis-reported" by the trade press, but what he meant was that on a relative basis, the ad industry is losing less ground than it had been at the height of the recession.

He said the global advertising outlook is more likely to look like the forecasts reported on Tuesday by his GroupM unit and Publicis' ZenithOptimedia, which called for slightly less than 1% expansion in 2010, and called Interpublic's forecast of 6% growth a "rogue" forecast.

Sorrell said the real engines of growth continue to be digital media and emerging markets -- especially China -- but characterized some new digital media phenomenon, particularly social networks like Facebook and microblogs like Twitter as potentially being short-lived, and said it is rare that digital media companies such as Google emerge with long-term traction in the advertising marketplace.

He also said that mobile media remains more underdeveloped than he would have expected, or would like to see, but that he believes Google's new Adroid operating system, and the smartphones being powered by it, would ultimately create a marketplace around mobile search and mobile advertising models.

"Google is the push for this," Sorrell predicted.

Phil Geier's Tips for Survival

http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=140895

Mr. Geier started at McCann-Erickson in 1958 and in 2000 retired as chairman-CEO of Interpublic Group of Cos. after a 20-year run in that post. A onetime chairman of the Ad Council, he currently serves as chairman of the Geier Group, a New York-based marketing communications and venture-capital firm.

Now 74, he began working on his first book, "Survive to Thrive: Sustaining Yourself, Your Brand, and Your Business from Recession to Recovery," last spring. The 250-page tome is written in the form of a time line, interspersed with business lessons learned working with blue-chip Interpublic clients such as Coca-Cola, Nestle and L'Oréal.

Mr. Geier: This one is a much tougher recession than the others because of the fact that the financial infrastructure has been semi-destroyed. In the past that's not been the problem, it has been that consumer aspects are hurt. This is worse, and it's going to take longer to come out of. The problem now is getting the consumer to spend, because if we don't do that, the economy isn't going to come back. You've got to entice them to save and spend at the same time, which is not easy.

The holding-company operation is still valid as long as it maintains the position that they can provide administrative and financial services in the center, and at a lower cost than they would if they were in the individual agencies. But [regardless of the model] the most important thing is making sure that the right people are in place at the agencies.

An Advertising Rebound?

http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/30/wpp-advertising-consumers-markets-economy-media.html?partner=yahootix

The company's head, media veteran Martin Sorrell, gave his usual appraisal of the global economy and the advertising world, giving observers the chance to glean small signs of hope: "There is little doubt that consumer and corporate confidence has recovered somewhat from the panic levels of the fourth quarter of 2008 and first quarter of 2009," he said.

"Confidence, however, remains fragile amongst consumers, because of the shadow of high unemployment levels and amongst corporates… Whilst the hearts of CEOs and CMOs are stronger and their minds clearer, increased confidence is still not transferring to their check-writing hands."

Despite Downturn, Bold Moves and New Techniques

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/business/media/29adco.html?_r=1&ref=media

Among the signs of improvement, or at least a bottoming out, are reports in trade publications like Advertising Age that demand for commercial time on television networks is increasing, even if slightly.

And Maurice Lévy, chief executive at another giant agency company, the Publicis Groupe, predicted on Tuesday that “the advertising market is starting its recovery” and Publicis would begin to see organic revenue growth in the second half of 2010.

In another indication that the worst may be in the rear-view mirror, some well-known executives are taking the risk of opening agencies at a time when many established shops are struggling. One new agency, called Victors and Spoils, is being started by partners who include two former senior managers at Crispin Porter & Bogusky, owned by MDC Partners.

Another is in the form of a New York office for a British agency, Beattie McGuinness Bungay, which is expanding outside London for the first time. The office, staffed with Americans, has its first client, Samsung.

BBDO Prepares to Shut Detroit Office

BBDO said it is preparing to close its Detroit office, as the Omnicom Group ad agency's contract with Chrysler Group, one of its biggest accounts, expires in January.
It said the closure would eliminate 485 jobs, including some at other offices http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703808904574525981338098004.html?ru=yahoo&mod=yahoo_hs

http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=140392

Back in 2000, when BBDO emerged the big winner in Chrysler's agency consolidation, the account was estimated to be worth $2.4 billion, and the agency's Detroit office -- exclusively devoted to serving the Dodge, Jeep and Chrysler brands -- numbered some 2,000 staffers. In 2009, amidst squeezed fees and contracted scope of work, the Chrysler account today is worth less than half that in billings, and staff at BBDO Detroit has dwindled to less than 500.

After a Brutal Year, Marketers Regroup to Share War Stories and Ideas

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/business/media/06adco.html?_r=1&ref=business

Devoting the agenda of the conference to “defying the recession” helped draw attendees, he added, which will be underlined by the introduction of what Mr. Liodice is calling a “marketers’ constitution.”

The document is composed of 10 “essential ‘musts’ of marketing,” Mr. Liodice said. He plans to describe them in a speech on Friday.
•
Those core principles, as outlined in an advance copy of his speech, include making marketing more “targeted, focused and personal,” insuring it can “build real, tangible and enduring brand value,” encouraging workplace diversity and social responsibility, and intensifying efforts to be “more creative, insightful and accountable.”

To those ends, Mr. Liodice will announce steps like the association’s first conference on creativity, probably in the second half of next year, and a study intended to demonstrate what he called the “immense economic contribution” made by marketing.

And Mr. Liodice said he would ask attendees to sign copies of the constitution, which will also be made available at other industry events and on the association’s Web site, ana.net.

Norwood Promotional Products Blames Bankruptcy On Downturn

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090506-715112.html

Norwood Promotional Products Inc., which sells backpacks, golf balls and coffee cups emblazoned with corporate logos and advertising messages, sought Chapter 11 protection after the economic downturn slashed orders for its products and kept it from refinancing its debt.

The Indianapolis company, which claims to be the second-largest supplier of promotional products in the U.S., on Tuesday filed its Chapter 11 petition with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., with a deal in hand to sell its business.

They've agreed to sell their operations to Aurora Resurgence, a California-based investment firm.

http://www.ibtimes.com/prnews/20090509/top-supplier-norwood-promotional-products-files-for-chapter-11-bankruptcy.htm

Brand Advertising Poised to Rebound?

http://adage.com/article?article_id=136629

Some of the results of a survey that the ANA plans to release next week were discussed at the event today, and among the findings was that 74% of senior marketers who responded believe "brand equity" is very important to their company's success. Of course, that hasn't stopped many marketers from paring back their brand-advertising budgets in the past year and focusing most of their efforts on cost-cutting and promotion.
But now, encouraged by the idea that consumer spending might have bottomed out -- or even be starting to trend ever so slightly upward -- some marketers said they would be returning to brand advertising soon.

Agency networks report tough Q1

http://www.marketingmag.ca/english/news/agency/article.jsp?content=20090430_170510_7356

Revenues and profits were down between January and March for the international companies that control many of Canada’s largest advertising and media agencies.
Four major holding companies released their first quarter financial reports this week. The sub-prime crisis and the resulting global recession, as well as currency fluctuations, were cited as key factors negatively effecting the bottom lines.
• Interpublic (New York)
Canadian companies: DraftFCB, MacLaren McCann, M2 Universal, Weber Shandwick
Global revenues were US$1.3 billion, down 11% from $1.5 billion in 2008. The company reported a net loss of US$73.9 million versus a loss of US$ 69.7 million in the first quarter of last year. This year’s loss includes US$41.6 million in severance charges.
• Omnicom (New York)
Canadian agencies: BBDO, TBWA, DDB, PHD, Fleishman-Hillard, High Road Communications
Revenues were US$2.8 billion between January and March, down 14% from US$3.2 billion in 2008. Profits were down 21.2%, reaching only US$164.5 million versus US$208.7 million last year.
• Publicis Groupe (Paris)
Canadian agencies: Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis, Leo Burnett, Zenith Optimedia, Starcom Mediavest
Global revenues were approximately US$1.4 billion (originally reported in Euros). While this reports as a 1.3% increase from last year’s numbers, currency fluctuations since that time resulted in a 4.4% drop in overall organic growth. However, North American revenues increased by 12.9%.
•WPP (London)
Canadian agencies: Grey, Ogilvy & Mather, JWT, Young & Rubicam, Group M companies, Hill & Knowlton, Wunderman
Revenues were down 5.8% “on a like-for-like” basis compared to last year. The drop was attributed to reduced client spending. Global revenue totaled approximately US$2.9 billion (originally reported in Euros).
Toronto-based MDC Partners, which tends to own a smaller percentage of its “partner” agencies such as Zig, Henderson Bas and Crispin Porter + Bogusky, saw a 6.7% decline in organic revenues. On consolidated revenues of US$126.7 million, net income attributable to MDC was only US$29,000—an improvement over the US$3.4 million loss from the same period in 2008.
Cossette, the Quebec City-based network that has agencies across Canada and in the U.S. and Europe, will report its revenues for the first three months of 2009 in May.

P&G Gets 5% More Media for $440 Million Less

http://adage.com/article?article_id=136393
Procter & Gamble Co. cut marketing spending more than $440 million globally last quarter, yet still increased media weight or impressions 5%, executives said today, and the company is eyeing more cost concessions from media as the TV upfront nears.
In all, marketing-spending cuts by the world's largest advertiser, including traditional advertising and shopper marketing, amounted to 2.4% of sales, a P&G spokesman said.
That means P&G's marketing cuts last quarter amounted to about 5% of its reported advertising spending for the entire fiscal year that ended last June. If sustained for a full year, last quarter's spending level likely would reduce the company's ad-to-sales ratio to its lowest level in at least 15 years.
Yet because of sharply falling media rates around the world, the company actually increased media weight about 5%, P&G Chief Financial Officer Jon Moeller said on an earnings conference call today.

Dr Pepper Snapple, bucking trend, ups advertising

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE53F6CM20090416

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc (DPS.N) is risking a different approach to the recession than other major advertisers: the soft drink maker is boosting its marketing budget, saying that's what worked best in the last big downturn.
Spending this year on everything from TV spots to print advertisements and more experimental Web campaigns will rise by up to 5 percent, the company's head of marketing, Jim Trebilcock, said in an interview. The company says its total marketing budget is about $300 million to $400 million.
The decision to spend more makes Dr Pepper Snapple an exception in a year when forecasters see overall U.S. advertising spending dropping by 8 to 10 percent, the steepest decline in more than two decades.
Company executives said they decided on the strategy after research firm Nielsen produced a study for them that detailed ad spending patterns during the early 1980s, the last prolonged advertising downturn.
"We wanted to find out what were the brands that were successful in '83 and '84, coming out of the recession?" said Trebilcock. "What did they do differently than others during the middle of the recession? Uniformly, the thing that came back is they didn't retrench. They reinvested."
The upshot is "dollars this year from a marketing standpoint are actually increasing," he said. "We believe that if we invest now, then when we come out of this thing in a year or two we'll be in a much stronger position."
This year, Dr Pepper Snapple will divide its creative advertising duties chiefly among three agencies. Interpublic Group's (IPG.N) Deutsch L.A. will handle Dr Pepper, Diet Dr Pepper and Snapple; WPP Group's (WPP.L) Y&R San Francisco is responsible for 7UP, Sunkist and A&W; and Laird & Partners will work on the Mott's brand.
As part of the marketing push, Dr Pepper Snapple is running new advertising for A&W, Canada Dry and Mott's -- brands that were long excluded from fresh ad campaigns.
In addition, Dr Pepper Snapple, the third-largest soft-drink maker in the United States behind Coca-Cola Co (KO.N) and PepsiCo Inc (PEP.N), is investing more in the ongoing make-over of its Snapple brand.
Following its spinoff from Cadbury Plc (CBRY.L) nearly a year ago, Dr Pepper Snapple has set its sights on reversing slumping sales of Snapple.
Now, in trumpeting the drink's health benefits, the Snapple tea label stresses that it's "all natural" and is brewed from green and black tea leaves. It has begun producing the tea with sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup.
The company also tweaked the formula of A&W, and is marketing the soft drink with a campaign that emphasizes it is made with "real aged vanilla," said Trebilcock. "We wanted to communicate it almost like a craft beer," he said.
For all its brands, Trebilcock said, the company wants to remind consumers that the drinks are relatively inexpensive even when household budgets are tight, but plans to avoid "overtly hitting people over the head" with money-saving messages.
"What we believe is that consumers will recognize the relative value," he said. "It's about reminding consumers why they love the fun flavors and great taste of our products. In an environment where coffee is five bucks a shot, here's Dr. Pepper at 33 cents a can or Snapple at $1.50."
As for the marketing mix, Trebilcock said it varies by brand but generally about 70 percent of ad spending occurs on TV, radio, and billboards, with another 20 percent spent online and the remaining 10 percent used for a variety of other promotions.

Economy Accelerates Shift To Digital Advertising

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=101150

The struggling economy may force companies to reduce investments in local advertising through 2013, but more ad dollars will go toward digital rather than traditional media, according to the U.S. Local Media Annual Forecast (2008-2013) by BIA Advisory Services and division Kelsey Group.

Payments Drag Out on TV Spots --- Makers of Commercials Complain That GM, Anheuser

Press for New Terms
By Suzanne Vranica
795 words
23 February 2009
The Wall Street Journal
B6
English
(Copyright (c) 2009, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
Some of the biggest advertisers in the U.S., including auto maker General Motors and brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev, are putting the squeeze on companies that produce and broadcast their ads, as part of an effort to rework contracts with suppliers to cut costs.
As the economy's slump continues, GM has raised an uproar among the production firms that make its TV spots by playing hardball on payment terms. Other advertisers could follow suit, bringing pressure on the small companies that make up that business.
Over the past few weeks, GM, whose brands include Cadillac, Buick and Pontiac, has offered to pay ad-production firms 50% of a commercial's production costs 60 days after the first day of shooting and the remaining 50% when the ad is finished. That's a major departure from the standard practice of paying 50% or 75% of the cost before production starts.
A car commercial can cost anywhere between $500,000 and $1.5 million, say production executives.
"This has the potential to destroy the commercial-production business," says Matt Miller, chief executive officer of the Association of Independent Commercial Producers, the New York-based trade group that represents production companies.
The move is the latest in a long list of cost-cutting moves cash-strapped GM has adopted as it seeks to avoid a bankruptcy filing. Last year, GM asked its ad agencies to cut their fees by as much as 20% for 2008 and 2009.
Historically, GM has been one of the U.S.'s biggest ad spenders, shelling out $1.6 billion to buy ad time and space for the first nine months of 2008, according to ad tracker TNS Media Intelligence, a unit of London-based ad-holding company WPP.
So far many production companies have balked at GM's terms, but people familiar with the matter say that some firms have agreed to the new payment structure.
GM declined to comment specifically on its moves, but a spokeswoman said, "We have and continue to work closely with our suppliers, partners and vendors in an effort to improve the efficiencies of our marketing."
Anheuser-Busch InBev is trying to overhaul all its vendor contracts, including advertising-related deals. The world's largest brewer by sales recently told media outlets that they will now be waiting 120 days after an ad runs to receive payment versus the typical 30-day standard.
"The challenging global economic environment has resulted in AB InBev, like many other multinational companies, reviewing its standard terms and conditions of payment," the company said in a statement.
WPP's Group M, which buys ads on behalf of corporate clients, recently proposed new terms for its online ad deals that could triple the time that online publishers wait to get paid for the ads they run. The changes were designed to give its agencies and clients more flexibility, and not to cause media companies any hardships, says John Montgomery, chief operating officer of Group M Interaction. Because of the tough economy most publishers have complied.
GM has been trying to persuade TV-production companies to accept its new payment terms by suggesting it is looking to have a few "preferred vendors." In order to be on the list, the production company would have to agree to the new fee structure. Production executives believe about 30 firms have received calls about the matter in the past few weeks. The new set-up reflects a broader policy change GM began applying to all its vendor contracts last year, according to a person familiar with the matter.
"Our business is not the same as buying lug nuts" says Cami Taylor, president and co-owner of Crossroads Films, a Los Angeles production firm that has said no to GM's new payment terms. Crossroads also works with major marketers like Anheuser-Busch and Procter & Gamble.
Ms. Taylor and other production executives say the lions share of their costs are tied up in labor and hard costs, such as locations and equipment, all of which have to be paid upfront. The new payment terms, they say, are unacceptable because many production companies aren't able to finance thesecosts, due to the tight credit facilities.
Donald Block partner and executive producer at Gartner Films, a production company in Santa Monica, Calif., adds: "GM and other brands are finding ways to delay payments more and more."
Mr. Block says GM still owes roughly $500,000 from a job he did in September. "It's a growing problem," he says.