Sir Martin Sorrell on 2009

For any of you that care, there is an interview of what Sir Martin Sorrell thinks is in store for most of us this year in advertising.

Mostly predictions about growth and agency performance. Probably matter more if you work for a WPP owned company.

On another note Tequila UK is with out an ECD now, as Cordell Burke leaves.

Not sure what's going on over there, in the last year agency.com has moved int the same office and progressivly occupied more and more office space.

Read all about it here.

Your agency and you

Should we question loyalty

Well should we, when I ask this it's more directed In the work place.

I for one am commited to my company (not 100% but that's just experience for you) but how commited is the company to you.

How do you define a companies loyalty in you?

Some of the answers I've heard back are:

• Training
• Pay
• Promotions
• Involvement in company affairs
• Parties

All of these replies are based on selfish needs which I'm not against, infact all of these are valid needs and will benefit both sides in terms of skills and moral. But with everything going on a lot of these are only dreams, a lot of these don't even exist in 2009 due to budget freezes.

The only option that's left that we can do is to involve our selves more in the company, basically stuff that is beyond our own capacity. None of us want to lose our jobs or be in constant state of fear of losing our job. Or may be you're in the position where you want to learn more about the agency beyond your own department, either way this is a time to get into the areas you want to learn.

I for one love working on pitches and what interests me about pitching is also the process of getting new business, also doing spec work is also an interesting way of keeping your ideas flowing.

On top of this you should think about it this way, you'll have a direct hand in shaping the agency you're at, you'll get more business savvy.

Recession, has it effected you?

Has the recession hit your work yet?

For the past month or so the market ha been quiet on many fronts, clients are reducing spend and news from the freelance world is that contracts are either drying up to none existent.

For me I've been very busy at work with a few clients but I have noticed a few account handlers at the agency scrambling to find recession proof clients to bring in (is there such a thing?).

But news from the WPP god father Martin Sorrell predicts that our industry wont feel the worst of it till Jan 09. I'm not sure how much worse it can get, with redundancies happening every where at the moment (LOWE, Publicis, Tequila to name a few) the outlook looks bleaker than ever.

So is there any good news?

Not really, usually in dark times such as these freelancers and smaller boutiques get loads of business as it's more bang for their buck for clients but so far this hasn't even come close to materialising.

My only advice to a lot of you that are worried about redundancies is to be heard and to be seen doing something pro-active otherwise as Ed morris once said "out of sight out of mind, out of mind no job.

I'd love to hear how the global financial market has effected you if at all, have you noticed any worried people about or are you concerned about another part of this chain?