Anecdotal evidence of marketing coming back to life

It seems that change is in the air.

In my conversations over the past few weeks with marketers on both the corporate and agency side I am hearing a new story.  People are beginning to plan for 2010, with the expectations that corporate marketing activity will increase.

For some this has been driven by necessity — from acquisitions or spin-offs.  More encouraging are the conversations about the need to get back to marketing.  In the first half of the year the theme was about driving down costs.  The new theme is the  need to drive customer demand.   The budget process for 2010 is moving forward, and people are saying that marketing budgets will increase from this year.  Projects that were on hold are now beginning to move.

Another common theme I am hearing is that it won’t be business as usual.  Marketers have been changed by this economic crater we fell into.  The move away from traditional media to digital media has accelerated.  The need to drive down costs hasn’t gone away.  There is a strong focus on justifying marketing to the senior management. The internal resources and staffing will remain at lower levels than before.

This is all still anecdotal.  Even so, it is encouraging to hear some optimism in the marketing field.