No surprise that Martin Sorrell sees the next few months as “very tough”, but the WPP ad group CEO also reckons the financial markets will improve in the second half of the year, leading to a “real-world” recovery in 2010 (via Bloomberg).

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By that time, though, the advertising world will have changed: “Old media will never be the same again or as profitable again,” he told an International Advertising Association gathering in London yesterday (via Campaign mag). Despite the times, 2008 was “tough but not as tough as expected by many” and “finished reasonably well”.

In a separate interview on Bloomberg, Sorrell gave his views on the online ad industry: “(In) display, I think there are questions. Search, i think there is a clear relationship (to effectiveness). The jury’s still out on display - in times like this, people start to qquestion the value.”

Asked about priorities for Obama, he spoke to the balance between privacy and targeted advertising, calling out Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg for the Beacon launch: “Even the world’s leading expert in social networking made a mistake in terms of that introduction and had to reverse the position very quickly - the privacy issue is very important.” Forecasts for social net ad spend have been trimmed, in part following Facebook’s struggle to monetise the social graph.