The Great Depression halved US advertising spending to a third of its pre-crash level

Evidence

“The total annual volume of advertising dropped from 3.4 billion in 1929 to 2.6 billion in 1930 and then to 2.3 billion a year later." Advertising expenditures bottomed out "at 1.3 billion in 1933, only 38% of the pre-Depression level.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1276

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in attention-industry history: the Depression’s collapse in ad spending parallels later platform downturns and the dot-com crash. — connects to: The Depression left consumers without money to respond to advertising pitches — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 282; The Depression-driven advertising crisis forced commerce into the home as a new attention source. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 286

Broader Connections

• The Depression left consumers without money to respond to advertising pitches #expands (0.85) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 282
• The Depression-driven advertising crisis forced commerce into the home as a new attention source. #corroborates (0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 286