• by Joe Mandese , March 23, 2009

At least that’s what Michael D. Kelley, Partner for Advisory Services in the Entertainment, Media and Technology Sector, PricewaterhouseCoopers, suggested on this morning’s “Economy” panel at OMMA Global.

Kelley echoed the sentiment of earlier speakers that the consumer has fundamentally shifted, and that the marketing world needs to shift along with them.

“Our consumer spending has changed. It will never go back to where it was,” Kelley predicted, adding, “We have to change with it.”

So what’s the big new change that Kelley considers so innovative? Layaways, the old Depression-era process in which consumers paid little installments over time, until they had paid enough to take receipt of a product.

Kelley said retail giant Walmart has brought the approach back, and he says we are shifting from an era in which consumers “deferred payment” (and ran up credit card debt), to one in which consumers will defer distribution of the products they purchase â€" over time.