Good news and bad news on marketing budgets

February 19 2009, 5:20pm

There's good news and bad news. The bad news first, from the Association of National Advertisers as reported by Media Post. A new survey of ANA of its members on how they are cutting marketing budgets in this nasty recession:

87% are adding departmental travel and expense restrictions 77% are reducing advertising campaign media budgets 72% are reducing advertising campaign production budgets 68% are challenging agencies to reduce internal expenses and/or identify cost reductions 58% are eliminating or delaying new projects 57% are freezing salaries or demanding hiring freezes 48% are looking to reduce agency compensation

Here's my take on the opportunities within that bad news: If travel is being cut, that's good news for producers of webinars and virtual events If ad campaign media budgets are being cut, that's good news for customer loyalty evangelists whose voices are often drowned out by business development and sales If ad campaign production budgets are being cut, that's good news for people who manage metric-driven systems like SEO and NPS If agencies are being forced to reduce internal expenses, that's good news for companies that make inexpensive project management or collaboration software If agency compensation is being cut, that's good news for start-up agencies that don't have the overhead of existing ones, or agencies that haven't had the impetus to reinvent themselves using a social media lens rather than a broadcast media lens

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