Sure, at face value this market is depressing.  Friends are out of a job, people are stressed out, and even agencies are marketing themselves as recession ready.

There are two ways to view this market:

1. Either you see opportunity to prove ROI, to demonstrate the value of solid creative or social execution, or -
2. you can fret over the deminishing ROI of the low hanging fruits of media. 

This is your opportunity to display your performance oriented marketing, your understanding of a business beyond a spot, a dot or a message.  This should be the golden age of the consultant, the upstart or the trully progressive agency. 

You can do it.  Calm your nerves and get on with it.  Smile with a colleague and be that positive force. 

And never stop listening, learning, rethinking, educating, networking and sharing.  There is no short term bailout for your business.  So it's up to you to get it going.

So get going, utilizing proven channels to fuel strong ROI/results-oriented interactions. 

This will drive the growth of deeply integrated cross platform marketing.

For example, traditional social influencers will bring their act to the web.  And while I doubt that Oprah will jump on Twitter over the coming year, I don't doubt that a frank, honest and very personal blog would garner tremendous influence.  And that influence is something brands would love to buy into.  The relationships are already in place.  This simple progressive step will open up worlds of opportunity.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg.  Sigma Group pulled together a fantastic presentation on marketing in the downturn, included below.  Kudos to the wonderful Adam Broitman for sharing thia presentation and inspiring this post.