WPP: Business Leaders Fear Global Downturn

Telegraph: Geopolitical uncertainty and fears of global deflation have unnerved business leaders, the world’s largest ad agency has warned. WPP said that “slowdowns in China and Brazil and geopolitical issues” remain top of business leaders’ concerns. As a result, there has been a “tsunami” of companies leading reviews of their advertising investment, concentrated largely in the U.S., the agency said. WPP added that clients are “certainly more confident than they were in September 2008 post-Lehman,” but that the current cocktail of concerns over the global economy “make them unwilling to take further risks.”