According to BusinessWeek (via Advertising Age), some of the biggest blue-chip companies are cutting back their ad budgets. Anheuser-Busch, Coke, GM, Nissan and Procter & Gamble have all announced plans to cut back or to impose tighter financial discipline on their marketing strategies.
This will have implications for PR teams, which are likely to see decreased budgets, too, or increased demands for ROI and metrics — unfortunately, it often requires additional investment to establish and track metrics.
I’d be interested in suggestions to address that.