Although you'll see that we were here yesterday, working in the blog mines simply for the benefit of you, we welcome you back from your long weekend, dear readers. To kick off the day, we start with maybe a slight-off-design-topic, but one we've been wondering about since around January: how much of an amazing gift has this extended, painful presidential primary process been for advertising, media buying, creatives in general, etc. Turns out, it's been a veritable flood of gold pieces for anyone in that industry, with companies positioned in the right place at the right time grabbing all the cash they can possibly carry, at least according to Sir Martin Sorrell, head of the WPP Group. Here's a bit:

Sorrell added to the general upbeat nature of the interview by saying that the global rise in commodity prices was having a knock-on effect, as clients were spending more on promotions and advertising:

"What we've seen I think on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world is an increase in activity... along with some of the other events that we all talk about, such as the Beijing Olympics, European football championships and political spending around the US elections, which have stimulated ad spending in 2008 and probably will continue to the end of the year."

And it couldn't come at a better time, what with the writer's strike earlier in the year messing everything up, the billions of viewing options people now have, etc. So, in this current economic downturn, it's nice to hear that at least one industry is making some money. Though we'd hate to be an ad accountant in 2009, explaining why their revenues aren't anywhere similar from the year prior.