Wikipedia defines austerity in the follwoing terms: "In economics austerity is when a national government reduces its spending in order to pay back creditors. Austerity is usually required when a government's fiscal deficit spending is felt to be unsustainable."

Given that Mr Brown is now 'almost' admitting to the need for imminent cut-backs in Government spending (he's taken to referring to Government spending in terms of zero growth, which in real terms is cutting expenditure) then we're going to experience a further reduction in discretionary spend but this time from the public sector. This is an area that has been protected so far because it it is one of the few mechanisms that allows direct Government intervention in lessening the impact of the recession.However, despite Brown's rhetoric, the general public is not so naive that it doesn't recognise that the belt-tightening has to come soon and come hard.

Unfortunately, marketing is one area of spend, like training, which most people feel they can cut without it causing too much harm. This is borne out of a mindset that looks upon marketing (and training) in terms of cost rather than investment. On the other hand, those decision makers taking the longer-term view will know that any marketing that is undertaken as part of a well-thought through strategy, which defines clear objectives and measurable outputs, will be way ahead of the competition as we see the economic upturn.