• by Scot McLernon , March 28, 2003

War. Just when we've dug our way out of the worst ad recession since 1929, now we have shock and awe.

Lord knows this industry has had its fair share of challenges over the last few years, beginning with the dot-com implosion. Most of you remember it, as well as the fact that we dug our way out. Then a recession and the bear market hit us. It's still going, but we've dug our way out of that, too. Then September 11th brought a new twist into doing business -- we had to ask when would it be OK to do business again. And when we did, we had to ask what messages marketers would want to deliver when they finally came back? After a prolonged absence from doing business, the industry dug out of that low point to actually string together a couple of good quarters in a row.

Now a war has created a brand new and very different kind of economic uncertainty. But unlike 9/11 with its prolonged uncertainty, there is already some daylight at the end of this one. It stems from results of the last two years of challenges and a strengthening of this medium as an advertising vehicle. The house of cards is gone. No more dot-com fueling dot-com. This is real business. These are real brands and real companies buying real advertising. Web advertising is growing some legs and the traditional marketer is paying attention. Innovative, accommodating and creative selling is taking place.

In fact, the traditional marketers are now the ones fueling this industry's healthy growth - and prior to this war the traditional marketers were promoting their products and services quite actively. But there has been some hesitation of late with "civil disobedience" disrupting our commutes and young people dying in the desert. There's no question that to market Lite Beer cat fights on any kind of grand scale right now would be in poor taste and insensitive. It's true that few marketers want to be labeled as being the one credited for "This war brought to you by."

With that said there seems to be a universal sentiment that the moment the air clears of bombs and smoke that the buyers, planners and creative teams will be marketing again. Personally, I think they're planning their return right now. So in anticipation of that or an even sooner return to business as usual , we're on the street making sales calls every day keeping our finger on the ever-fickle marketing pulse.

We're ready to do business again because even if we can't all agree on whether the war is right or wrong, can we all agree that doing business is the American way?