How Important is Marketing during the Credit Crunch?

That’s a fairly vague question I admit as it is open to many answers but to be completely black and white I’d say it’s more important than ever.

Cuts are being made in budgets all over the place, jobs are being lost and departments merged, the boundaries of roles are being blurred in some instances and people are being expected to do two jobs instead of one. Basically most companies need a pound to do the work of a fiver and they need to find more and more innovative ways to do so.

This goes for the marketing departments too as while marketing budgets get cut ideas need to become more creative to get better results. More thinking outside the box is required to beat the competition as things are getting tough out there and only the fittest will survive.

This survival attitude and the need for more innovative marketing solutions will probably force designers to become more competitive too and perhaps even allow many the freedom they always craved to open their true creative channels. I say let the creative juices flow freely and the credit crunch may just create a by-product of visually stimulating commercial and retail environments.

Perhaps that’s the positive that will come out of a dire financial situation or perhaps I’m just clutching at straws for a positive, either way marketing and design departments will weather the storm better than some departments as they are possibly more necessary in a financial downturn than in boom times.