“As is true in life, the markets and the marketing industry, perception typically trumps reality,” Mr. Sawyer said. “There will most likely be more belt tightening by both consumers and businesses, which will of course adversely impact our industry.”

All media are likely to feel the pain of a weaker economy. “If the advertising market goes down, Google’s going to feel it, too,” said Edward Atorino, media industry analyst at Benchmark Co.

A slowing economy will most hurt media sectors that already face long-term challenges.

“There is most likely going to be some weakness going into the back half of the year,” said Leo Kulp, an advertising and publishing analyst at Citi Investment Research. That will especially afflict sectors already struggling with secular changes (such as newspapers and magazines). Strong, growing media players (such as Google and cable programmers) and agency holding companies should do better.”

“Companies need to continue to invest in advertising and marketing,” Mr. Kulp said. “That’s going to benefit the ad agencies [and agency holding companies]. But I think you’re going to see continued share coming away from the challenged media. You’ll see the P&Gs of the world taking money away from newspapers and using that for digital and cable networks and other media forms.”

Procter & Gamble Co., the nation’s and world’s largest advertiser, on Aug. 5 said it expected worldwide sales this fiscal year to increase 5% to 9% and vowed to boost ad spending in line with sales growth — a bullish sign for media overall considering that P&G is the top U.S. spender on cable TV and in magazines and the No. 2 advertiser on network TV.

How slowing GDP will translate to media and entertainment is still playing out. Walt Disney Co. President-CEO Bob Iger, speaking to analysts Aug. 9, said: “During the past few days, we haven’t seen any changes in our parks and resorts, advertising or consumer-products businesses.” But stock in Disney — parent of ABC and ESPN — fell sharply last week amid concerns that businesses such as theme parks could be hurt going forward.

Marketers are showing caution in developing marketing plans for the fall and beyond. Some are reconsidering plans that don’t have immediate impact to the bottom line. “There has been a dramatic shift from ‘nice to have’ to ‘need to have,'” said Wes Nichols, CEO of MarketShare, whose technology helps Fortune 500 companies allocate media spending. “Extraneous, experimental or soft solutions are being tossed in favor of doing more with less.”

Experts in marketing analytics stand to benefit. Lisa Donohue, CEO of Publicis Groupe’s Starcom USA, said challenges being faced by clients “support the need for robust analytics practices that can give us more real data regarding what is driving business vs. what is not.”

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