New Year's Eve 2008. And cheery as we may all be between now and midnight, tomorrow morning will dawn soon enough bringing with it the Year of the Further Disintegrating Economy.
Only a fool would offer their view of what the year ahead holds in store as anything more than a musing. There are simply too many variables, and too many normally fixed lumps of the earth's crust moving in flux for anyone at all to predict with any confidence what lies ahead.
But business will go on, albeit without MFI, Woolworths, Adams and __________________ (add your own favourite defunct financial services provider here).We all need to eat, clothe ourselves and keep roofs over heads. Consequently, people will do what they have always done in troubled times: use their imaginations, ingenuity and initiative to breathe life into new ventures, steer apparently doomed projects around the scariest of hairpin bends and show a resourcefulness otherwise often absent from UK business.For we band of copywriting brothers (and sisters), it's a huge opportunity. Businesses need to market themselves harder in this economy than in one as bullish as a walk down Pamplona High Street.New customers need to be enticed.Old customers need to be updated.Suppliers need to be encouraged and reassured.Investors need accurate and regular information.The media need to fill columns (both digital and printed).Copywriting has previously proved its value through the French and Russian Revolutions, 2 World Wars, the Great Depression, the General Strike, the rise and fall of Communism and, in recent times, the bursting of the DotCom bubble.It would be nuts to think it doesn't have a role to play now.I wish you a happy, healthy and successful 2009.
Happy New Year Laurence. I wholeheartedly agree with what you say in this post ... lot's of exciting potential. I'm actually looking forward to navigating the new world ...
Anyone interested in some New Year Resolutions might find this amusing ...
http://russellcavanagh.com/2/?p=102
Here's to an interesting 2009. All the best.
Posted by: Russell Cavanagh | Thursday, 01 January 2009 at 08:42 PM