Local Online Advertising Spending 2010: Borrell is Smoking Crack

Borrell is predicting that local online advertising spend will only grow by 6% in 2010.

Last year according to Borrell local Web spending grew by 46% over 2008:

The growth was due mainly to smaller local businesses being forced to adjust their marketing dials for a more efficient advertising mix,” according to Borrell. “Many of them continued to trim their newspaper, Yellow Pages and direct mail advertising while pushing more of their money toward less-expensive Web advertising.

So why is 2010 going to be such a relative dog compared to 2009, when the country was in the midst of starting to recover from a collective national freakout?

From where I sit I don’t see any pullback from those smaller businesses who were forced online. If anything those who got in last year are probably a bit smarter about using the medium now and will likely turn on the jets. And based on my in-box along with what I hear from just about everyone else in the search/social marketing side of the business, the demand is only increasing.

And so for this timid projection I dub Borrell Associates “Crack Smoker of the Month^TM“