From the Editor

If 2004 was the year of the great advertising rebound, why didn’t it feel that way?

This time last year, we were writing about the end of the recession, the comeback of the stock market and unusually upbeat predictions from usually pessimistic prognosticators. All signs pointed up. During the year, several forecasters even revised their projected increases upward, and ultimately the numbers were good. But numbers never tell the whole story. As Noreen O’Leary reports in our lead story, beginning on page 4, clients may have loosened their purse strings, but they were spending their money differently.