Any recovery in marketing spending is likely to lag behind the economic recovery, WPP’s media monitoring firm has warned, as the US advertising market declined further in the first quarter.

TNS Media Intelligence on Wednesday said US advertising spending fell 14.2 per cent to $30.2bn in the first three months of the year, compared with the same period of 2008. The decline accelerated from from a 9.2 per cent drop in the fourth quarter last year.