Isn’t watching the news so much fun these days?

It was refreshing to see this positive headline on Adweek.com:

Ad Nets Find Q1 Less Horrific Than Expected

With decreasing budgets, clients are rightfully demanding that advertising be more and more targeted than ever–there is not money lying around for casual experimentation and casting of wide nets.  For many companies, it’s survival mode and time to hunker down.  One way to hunker down is to focus on your top target markets and mine them for everything they are worth–without appearing greedy of course.

Some things to consider in 2009, which will be the least normal economic year in decades:

• People are human.  Everyone in marketing is at least somewhat anxious about their job.  It’s natural for marketing directors to hope avoid saying this to their CEO: “Well, yes sir, the sales are down, and the economy is partly to blame.  But you are right, maybe now was not the time to spend 34% of our marketing budget on reaching out to a target market that at best could give us a 2% revenue jump.”

Agencies should continue to push innovation and creative solutions, but strategically should respect clients and their situations.   We’re all in this together.

• Seriously consider buying ad networks.

Whether behavioral, contextual, vertical or retargeting services, there might not be better bang for your buck right now than a surgical approach of online display advertising.  But, before you start buying up networks left and right really really think about patterns of consumer behavior and targeting-combining.

• Plan.  And then be ready to change.  Quickly.  I’m not saying that you should be screwing around with your brand non-stop.  That will cost you tons of money later.  I’m saying be nible with your tactics and strategies.

We’ve all made the mistake of not planning something, whereby you end up running around in circles.  But understand this:  The market is not normal right now.  Consumers are not acting normal.  Markets are irrational.  Psyches change daily.  Budgets change, daily.  Anxiety is almost as high as consumer confidence is low.   Just because accounting (and the IRS) likes to consider January 1-December 31 as a nice pretty window of time, doesn’t mean that your plans should be set in concrete to adhere to the old rule of “Let’s plan 2009 and execute, and then in December we’ll plan again!”  Right now, it’s more important to be nimble, and to be constantly reevaluating the state of your audience.  Think in months and quarters. Therefore, keep your 2009 plans as frameworks, and PLAN for tactical changes. Mark Kane, CEO of Traffiq, noted: “Let’s plan 2009 is gone. “Now, it’s mid-January, and (media) buyers are saying, ‘Let’s plan February.’”