One of the best ways to move a large marketing organization from unmeasured marketing to measured marketing is to test everything and kill the things that cannot prove their value -- then move that budget to things that can prove their value.
This is not new, every sizable marketing organization has been doing this for at least a decade. This reality translates to a great deal of disruption -- even if the overall budget is only changing slightly.
The same thing is happening in the labor market. Our unemployment rate is stuck at 10%, but 3.2 million new jobs were created in August. This number cannot be evaluated without also looking at the job separations -- also 3.2 million. So no net new jobs -- no change in unemployment rate.
Some would say that nothing is happening in either marketing or employment. I say that a great deal is happening. For every dinosaur company that is letting people go, there is a rising company hiring. For every dog of a marketing idea getting killed, there is a new one starting up.
The next time you hear "we have no budget for that" remember that somewhere else someone is saying "let's do it!".
LATER: Jobs numbers just out: 95,000 net jobs lost in September.