Watch ad economy instead of Wachovia

Hard for the ad biz to seem very relevant these days what with the economic meltdown and all, so looks like everyone has latched onto the story of Ogilvy losing Wachovia before it ever had it, along with other musings about what's going to happen to the agencies for other down-and-out and assimilated banks, like Washington Mutual. Would far rather see column inches be spent on what the economic crisis means for ad spending, and fortunately, a few stories about that are starting to trickle in, as depressing as they are to read. This morning Mediapost's Diane Mermigas has a column this morning telling readers not to "get too comfortable" with the already downbeat ad expenditure forecasts, and couldn't agree more. (Yeah, I, too, write a column for Mediapost.) Even the reports released in the last few days, if you read the fine print, were compiled well before the events of the last few weeks. Little did those who wrote them, or us who read them, know that we hadn't seen nothin' yet.