Holding Company Revenue, Share Growth Offer Optimism

Even though U.S. ad agency unemployment is 11.8 percent, the big four holding companies are seeing healthy revenue gains this year. WPP reports revenue is up 7.4 percent for the first nine months of 2010, Omnicom is up 6.6 percent during the same period, Publicis realized an 8.4 percent revenue gain and Interpublic saw U.S. revenue grow 8.9 percent.

Advertising Age reports shares for the four companies were "at or near their highest points since the start of the 2007 recession."

It's not quite time to pop the champagne or shoot a gerbil out of a canon but, in this industry, we'll take all the good news we can get.

All we can do at this point is pray hints of recovery turn into an actual recovery.