There is some truth in the article below about what medium owns the big idea and the battle between the agencies,etc. This is one of many articles out there right now that preach the end is near for marketing and marketing departments. The end is near for a few things: big budgets, agency turf wars, and petulant creatives. Their time was up anyways.
There are more opportunities in this down economy than these types of articles allow you to think. There is the opportunity to ditch your overpaid big agency for a small integrated shop that is used to hustling and delivering to clients on time and on budget. There is the opportunity to reach out to your consumers and shoppers in more organic ways that cost less. Also, teamwork is very frugal, the more your team is working together the more you are saving. If you think about it, when is the last time the marketing guys sat down with the money guys and worked through their product portfolio to understand the success of each product? Remember that simple exercise from college with the four quadrants of a product life cycle? Yep, dust it off and analyze how your products match up. I think that a back to basics approach for some of these CMO is in order. You would be surprised by what you find.
