Two seasons and the sounds of silence

The past week and change has been a true roller coaster ride in financial markets and landscape of the financial sector has been forever changed. I have been saying for quite some time that the country had to survive a hard 'winter' if we were to truly appreciate spring and it seems as if we are in a constant blizzard of late.

But there is still freezing weather to come. This shake out is far from over and the impact is far reaching across a broad range of socio-economic strata. I think that the working world as we know it is going to change as a result. More entreprenuers will arise out of the ashes and people will work differently and more collaboratively than ever before.

Yet before we see an economic 'spring' there will be frostbite and some people will be frozen out of their homes and old life. And what of the marketing world implications? How about Ogilivy and Mather who had won the Wachovia account as recently as last week? Now Citibank takes over that relationship and O & M is out in the cold too. Add to this the constant cold wind that advertisers are pulling back on their budgets as a response to the continued tightening of consumer purse strings.

On the other hand advertising clutter stands a great chance of being dramatically reduced. What this means is that advertiser messages have a much better chance of getting through. Now the trick is to make that message RELEVANT to the target market. No doubt priorities have changed and so should the messaging. The right message combined with the right audience will mean your product or service has a better chance of making big strides in the quiet of this economic winter.

So we will be working with our clients and prospects on getting the right message out there NOW! Besides - Groundhog Day cannot be too far off.