Credit card issuers cut TV advertising

Gas for the car? $0. Food for the fridge? $0. Money for the mortgage payment? $0. Fewer credit card commercials? Priceless.

It shouldn't come as a big surprise that the current credit crunch will be limiting our exposure to oft-repeated, memorable and often spoofed credit card commercials. According to Advertising Age and Nielsen (the world's leading provider of marketing information), credit card advertising slipped a whopping 24 percent in September.

"The number of ad units touting credit card services fell to 13,704 from Sept. 1-21, 2008, compared with 18,057 from Sept. 3-23, 2007," reports Advertising Age. "In July and August, those same marketers increased TV ad spending by nearly 27 percent to nearly $218.5 million from approximately $172.7 million," says Annie Touliatos, vice president of sales development for Nielsen Co. No matter how far we stick our heads in the sand, the dire global economic situation changed dramatically from the summer and doesn't appear it will be righting itself anytime soon. The credit and lending industries are the lead dogs in the credit-crunch pack.

To further illustrate, revolving credit card debt increased $52 billion from August 2007 to August 2008, according to the Federal Reserve. National credit card debt per credit card borrower, according to TransUnion, increased 2.63 percent to $1,717 -- up from $1,673 in Q1 and up by 8.6 percent from 2007's second quarter level of $1,581. (Q3 results have not been released yet.) Add in the mix that unemployment rate is 6.1 percent --up sharply from 4.7 percent a year ago -- and projected to hit 7 or 7.5 percent by late next year -- paying those credit card bills will become increasingly difficult. It's no wonder those ad dollars are being repurposed.

Credit card issuers aren't the only ones cutting their advertising campaigns -- ads for mortgages fell 49.84 percent and mutual fund ads fell 29.02 percent in September, Nielsen said. I guess that means more air time for our presidential candidates -- at least for the next few weeks.

See related: What happens to credit card debt when a bank fails, Credit card debt up, delinquencies down in Q2, report says, Fed report on consumer credit shows pace of card use falls