I was reading a great blog and LinkedIn question today by Patrick Byers. In it he posed the question "Will the economy kill creativity?"

My answer to that ...

The economy may not kill creativity, but it will beat it around for a while.

It is time for the accountants to do battle with the marketers. For the past 15 years or more the Accountants have had to dream up projects to suck the life out of companies (SOX, Y2K, etc.). Meanwhile, Marketers have been able to run rampant with poorly performing ad campaigns and nary a concern for their own brand. It didn’t matter. The economy was so strong and people were so crazy about spending every last dime and then some (a lot of some apparently), that no marketer could do wrong.

Now it’s time for the Accountants to have their revenge! Over the next year or more every Marketing effort will be pecked to death and creativity will die.

So - it is time for Marketers to “start again” and do some navel gazing to make sure they are doing the right thing. The right place to start is to clearly understand your brand and to be able to own a word in the consumer’s mind with respect to your brand. From there, you can start again on your marketing plan, and ultimately some great and successful marketing projects.