And not a moment too soon. Many ad agencies in Asia - accustomed to prospering in this fast-growing $22-billion market - lost money and had to lay off people last year. But, according to a new study by marketing researcher AC Nielsen Corp., ad spending in Asia, excluding Japan, grew faster during the first half of 1999 than in both Europe and the US, and should top 1996 - the year before regional economies crashed.

The survey - which estimates ad spending by counting the number of ads and multiplying them by published ad rates - shows that manufacturers' marketing executives, at least, expected consumers to start spending more. That's good news for Asian economies which still aren't out of the woods. ``Advertising is a good barometer of consumer confidence,'' said Steven Yung, President of AC Nielsen Media International.

Among the markets with the biggest gains: South Korea, where advertisers spent $2 billion during the first half of the year, as the economy started to recover from financial turmoil. That figure was 21 per cent more than the same period last year, when ad spending had plunged 25 per cent.

In Indonesia, despite riots and political upheaval - advertisers spent 32 per cent more during the first half of the year, or almost half a billion dollars, compared with a 16 per cent drop in 1998. But even optimists concede that Indonesia's economy is still wobbly. So why was ad spending up?Taking advantage of the economic crisis and political uncertainty, big multinational companies continued their ad campaigns hoping to gain market share from shakened local rivals, said Michael Kiosoglous, regional finance director for Leo Burnett Co., the US advertising giant, which represents the makers of Coca-Cola, Marlboro cigarettes and Tide laundry detergent in Indonesia and around the world. Leo Burnett declined to say whether its clients raised their spending in Indonesia.

A lot of smaller Asian manufacturers, on the other hand, couldn't even afford to pay their agencies last year, according to Kiosoglous. ``They even offered barter deals. If you were a developer, for instance, you gave your (ad) agency a condo.'' One car dealer even offered a free vehicle to one of Leo Burnett's agents in Manila.

Around the region, the dominance of US and European ad agencies also grew last year as smaller local players either closed or were acquired by larger competitors. This year that trend slowed, in part because of the improving ad market, but also because there were fewer local media-buying and ad agencies left to acquire.

``Every man and his dog have already been bought in Asia,'' said Kelly Clark, the chief executive officer of Mindshare Ltd., an Asian media-buying unit, owned by US ad agencies Ogilvy & Mather and J. Walter Thompson.

Mindshare says it's one of the two or three biggest media-buying agencies in Asia, and buys TV time and ad space in newspapers for clients such as American Express Co., International Business Machines Corp. and Nike Inc.

Even the multinationals got hurt in last year's downturn. Grey Advertising's Asian unit, for instance, laid off about a 10th of its people, said Steve Wellstead, regional client-service director for Grey's media-buying unit, Mediacom. ``First the free Coke and orange juice stocked in the refrigerator started to go, and then the people started to go,'' he said. This year, he said, business improved at Mediacom, which buys ad space in Asia for Reebok sneakers, Holiday Inn hotels, and Oracle computers.

The AC Nielsen survey bears out the agencies' optimism. It found that advertisers shelled out 22 per cent more in Thailand, or half a billion dollars, in the first half compared with the year-earlier period, which saw a 30 per cent drop. In Taiwan, which was not as hard-hit as of most of its neighbours by the regional crisis, ad spending grew 3 per cent to more than $900 million.

In Malaysia spending was up 5 per cent to $280 million, after sliding almost 19 per cent during the first half last year. Philippine companies bought $560 million in ads, or 11 per cent more than they did a year ago.

AC Nielsen doesn't operate in Japan, the world's second-largest ad market.There were some trouble spots. In Singapore, with it's population of little more than three million, ad spending fell 7 per cent to $320 million. In China, ad spending grew only 3 per cent to $2.7 billion.

But AC Nielsen cautions that in hard times, TV stations and newspapers often discount heavily from their published ad rates, in some cases by as much as 10 per cent or more. So ad spending in China, experts say, may actually be falling.