Total advertising spending rose 3% to $140 billion year-over-year in 2012, according to Kantar Media, which attributes the gain in part to the quadrennial Olympics and elections season. The retail, automotive, local services and telecom categories also showed single-digit gains. Procter & Gamble, Comcast and General Motors were the three largest advertisers in terms of spending, although only Comcast among these three increased its spend last year, up 10% to $1.7 billion.