Ramifications of Wall Street

Besides the hit to everyone's 401k, what does the consolidation and meltdown of major financial institutions mean to marketers?

• The obvious is less firms to sell products too. As a result, a marketers value proposition is going to have to be honed as they will absolutely need to prove value/ROI in this tight budget environment.

• All the people you worked with before at these firms, be it on direct marketing lists or tried to sell to, they may all be gone now. Where are they and how do you make up for this volume?
  

• A positive may be that their are very good marketers looking for jobs right now. Ones with extensive B2C experience that may have never thought they would be in the position they are now today. If you need to fill some roles, find them and reach out (est. 50k in layoffs between ML and Lehman alone).

• What does this mean to your budgets and marketing mix? Can you still justify the plan from the beginning of the year or does this money need to be shifted to other methods or put away for a better day?

Unfortunately, the mess is not over and may prolong the economic downturn, despite lower oil prices. As a result, it is time to revisit your plans given the new micro and macro environments. As a friend of mine who works on Wall St. said in an email to my question to see if ML, AIG, and Lehman (and Fannie/Freddie) was the bottom or more bad to follow: "Not good."

Time to start thinking as it will effect everyone from established firms with healthy cash hoards/flow to start-ups that were hoping for that next round for growth.