Comment Summary

Is the marketing business more fun, less fun or just as fun today as it was a year ago?
#	Response Date	Other comments:
1.	11/13/2008 7:43:00 PM	People are so time pressured that they are less willing to listen to new ideas from people who sell.
2.	11/13/2008 7:45:00 PM	Creative new technologies help counter balance new regulations
3.	11/13/2008 7:51:00 PM	Our company is actually in a good spot and growing. It's a good thing though. If I didn't like this job, I'd have a pretty hard time finding another (I'm in Michigan)
4.	11/13/2008 7:51:00 PM	Most times it's business as usual, not much marketing needed. But now, I need to generate more business to fill in the gaps created by the economy, so now more than better, I'm "ready" and alert to new opportunities and strategies. Since less business means less money to advertise, I'm on the look out for free and cheap ways to get the word out. Often that means donating services and going with the little guy who's very grateful for some support. I'm more creative and "juiced" about my business and that's stimulating.
5.	11/13/2008 7:51:00 PM	Funding is more restrictive, more apprehension with trying new concepts
6.	11/13/2008 7:54:00 PM	You have to really be outside the box in this economy!
7.	11/13/2008 7:55:00 PM	oy, and when I think about when I started in this business in 1983....by comparison now it's like working in a mortuary.
8.	11/13/2008 7:56:00 PM	The smart ones will win. The economic situation demands new thinking.
9.	11/13/2008 7:57:00 PM	We are facing some economic woes, but the changing influence model with digital/social media is very exciting.
10.	11/13/2008 8:06:00 PM	more challenging = more fun. Isnt this why we went into marketing in the first place?
11.	11/13/2008 8:13:00 PM	I'm young in the industry, so it still feels the same way it did when I started.
12.	11/13/2008 8:15:00 PM	clients just have less money/tighter budgets so it's harder to get them to approve research projects . . which they generally are in MAJOR need of doing!
13.	11/13/2008 8:34:00 PM	Faster turnarounds, less think time, more tactical and adminisitrative activities
14.	11/13/2008 8:35:00 PM	I think it's more fun because things can't get any worse with a crashing economy. Sort of maniacal fun, you know?
15.	11/13/2008 8:37:00 PM	we are being creatively challenged to look at different and new ways to break through with significantly fewer resources and dollars.
16.	11/13/2008 8:51:00 PM	As Internet marketing kicks in as primary execution channel
17.	11/13/2008 8:57:00 PM	Not unlike so many other fields and industries, marketing is in "survival mode."
18.	11/13/2008 9:20:00 PM	More difficult to pick up large accounts in these conditions. Brands are willing to change even if there is solid evidence that it will help.
19.	11/13/2008 9:22:00 PM	Luckily we haven't had too much fallout over the times.
20.	11/13/2008 9:28:00 PM	It is always less fun, when the economy starts to really drag.
21.	11/13/2008 9:33:00 PM	No budget direction
22.	11/13/2008 9:51:00 PM	We really have to be accountable for every dollar we spend of the clients money. They are asking for detailed breakdowns of hours spent on projects.
23.	11/13/2008 10:18:00 PM	We've got new email & web tools.
24.	11/13/2008 11:14:00 PM	LONG TERM HAS GIVEN WAY TO TODAY. PATIENCE IS THIN.
25.	11/13/2008 11:26:00 PM	no budgets / low budgets due to economy. Basics must be done ... less creative exploring possible right now.
26.	11/14/2008 12:27:00 AM	Clients who had been innovative have become very risk averse and need reviews of every step and hold up budgets of projects that had been commissioned
27.	11/14/2008 12:46:00 AM	If marketing more often aligned with making Meaning, that would make it more palatable and therefore more fun. It's hard to "sell stuff" when the U.S. consumer economy is in the tank. Households, our government, our leading institutions (banks, retail, automotive) make short-term indulgent decisions that are just now resulting in overwhelming debt. Nevermind the global landscape where 50% of the world's wealth is concentrated among 1% of the population. It's become impossible for me, Willow Lundgren, to be satisfied with marketing as usual and to not feel as though doing so, simply makes me part of some rather monumental problems.
28.	11/14/2008 12:51:00 AM	It's time to get more creative.
29.	11/14/2008 1:24:00 AM	clearly, the environment has changed. It's more difficult to get clients to listen, let alone, maintain their spending. But in this environment, you find out how good you are...or aren't.
30.	11/14/2008 4:57:00 AM	In this economy is anything more fun?
31.	11/14/2008 10:39:00 AM	Things are tighter, but there is a lot of fun to be had exploring the new world of social media.
32.	11/14/2008 2:51:00 PM	Results have always been key, but not historically the first point of discussion, that is changing.
33.	11/14/2008 3:55:00 PM	different challenges, different solutions = all good
34.	11/14/2008 4:48:00 PM	For those with a passion for it, marketing is now more of an adventure into discovery, rather than a trip down the mediocre road of sameness.
35.	11/14/2008 5:50:00 PM	Clients are scaling back, going to the bare bones and don't want to take any risks.
36.	11/14/2008 8:17:00 PM	much more pressure to deliver short term
37.	11/15/2008 7:17:00 AM	It's really more fun in the sense that it's more challenging. We're forced to think of new ways to reach consumers with less budget than we've had in the past. We can't just repeat last year's events/marketing messages.
38.	11/16/2008 12:57:00 AM	There are more interesting new ways to reach consumers. Financial pressures require ingenuity which leads to invention.
39.	11/16/2008 9:47:00 PM	Now it has included neuroscientific researchs, absorved influences from multiple sources, as art markets for instance, or exotic culture's theories.
40.	11/17/2008 2:27:00 AM	budgets being cut
41.	11/17/2008 9:44:00 PM	We have to keep our chins up!
42.	11/18/2008 9:06:00 PM	Every analyst wants to see channel-level ROI but no one is footing budgets for true channel experimentation. Budgets are flat at best so innovation is stalling - far more of a "prove this will work" before committing the dollars but the models aren't developed enough to show that. So, far more "little" victories than big ones currently
43.	11/21/2008 8:59:00 PM	An economic recession very often prompts a creativity recession -- that is, an environment less receptive to risk