When the speakers come, we rarely know what they’re going to say in advance. We don’t try to influence anything they’re going to say. So, the thing that surprised me most, particularly on the first day, was the amount of focus on getting back to basics, that fundamentals work. You can be influenced by the shiny toy called social media or digital advertising, but great marketing and the ability to influence great brands comes from marketing and managing brands in its most fundamental way. We’re all going to be influenced by three-dimensional growth, whether it’s integrated marketing, marketing accountability, or brand building, so you’ve got to get it down to the core basics.

We’ve said it before: don’t be recessive, go out and grab the bull by the horns. That takes courage because you may not have media payback in a particular quarter, but you could grab share of market. In difficult times, you don’t necessarily have to go off message that much, but tailor your message. That’s what Charles Schwab did. They were able to take their particular core message and massage it.

Looking ahead, we’re seeing very tangible signs of recovery, of optimism, of people who are considering to invest more in their respective businesses year over year, perhaps back to 2008 levels and beyond. Clearly we’re struggling with where our investments should all go. There’s going to be a little bit of a dichotomy: on one hand, we’re seeing GDP growth, but on the other hand, we’ve seen unemployment rise. Those two things are working against each other. I would suggest to all marketers to step back and expect that the recovery is going to happen in moderation. We’re not out of the woods. There are a lot of things that could affect this economy, including the incredible deficits that we have in front of us and the fact that the dollar is dropping like a rock. I don’t believe we have truly stabilized to point where we can say we have extreme confidence, but things are pointing in the right direction. We must be prepared, be cautiously optimistic. We’ve seen double-dip recessions before.