Welcome to 2009, the Year of the Ox, supposedly of steady and unpredictable character versus the highly unpredictable and intangible Year of the Rat in 2008.
However, only 2 weeks into 2009 the predictions and forecasts are flying fast for the advertising world. 2009, depending on your view and information sources, maybe some, all or none of the following; The Year of Taming the Data Dragon; The Year of Blank Slate Planning; The Year of the Traditional Media Bloodbath; The Year of Retention not Acquisition; The Year of Negative Growth, or The Year of Cautious Decisions.
The only thing that is certain is the economic fabric of the world has torn and changed, once-powerful and successful companies (including some media owners) are in disarray, the global consumption addiction has slowed down dramatically and current advertising models and beliefs are being questioned by clients, media owners and agencies alike.
Advertising and branding is still seen as the number-one growth driver by companies (Forrester) as economies continue to flatline or downturn, but the question now is what mix of customer-facing activities will constitute this growth in these volatile and changing times.
With this in mind, maybe a key phrase for the advertising industry in 2009 is “Accountable Innovation”. Without doubt a combination of declining consumer and business confidence will drive harder focus on the effectiveness and efficiency of every available ‘advertising and branding’ cent invested, but there will still be significant budgets to be invested.
The opportunity is for media owners and agencies to review their business practices, methodologies and offerings with intent to be smarter in thinking, more innovative in approach and more accountable in delivery. The real danger is to keep doing the same thing, as it would start to appear that recent historical behaviour patterns are no longer key predictors of future behaviour.
So in the words of Richard Nixon:
“The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis’. one brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger - but recognize the opportunity.”
