Thinking outside of the trough

Following on from our last edition where we featured digital assets, the notion of ‘toxic’ financial assets has been all over the mainstream media, highlighting the relative value of tangible and intangible assets. Apparently, many wealth management funds are trying to move client assets into gold, a safe haven during times of economic upheaval. So, while bonds and other securities take a battering, the realisation that an asset has value has shot right up the agenda to the extent that Wall Street and its creative financial engineers are scrabbling around for liquidity plumbers to unblock the pipes.

Following on from our last edition where we featured digital assets, the notion of ‘toxic’ financial assets has been all over the mainstream media, highlighting the relative value of tangible and intangible assets. Apparently, many wealth management funds are trying to move client assets into gold, a safe haven during times of economic upheaval. So, while bonds and other securities take a battering, the realisation that an asset has value has shot right up the agenda to the extent that Wall Street and its creative financial engineers are scrabbling around for liquidity plumbers to unblock the pipes.

Meanwhile, corporates at least have a wealth of digital assets and brand assets to leverage. It would seem that in times such as these, with the finance function on standby, it’ll be up to the marketing functions to show them just how savvy they’ve become since the dotcom bubble burst. In fact, the entire online marketing space is now arguably more lucrative a place to trade and market brand assets and digital content than the treasury functions and the accounting specialists. While international standards and regulations, supposedly, dictate how they can operate, the e-marketing functions have no such limitations to their creative business potential for earning wealth during difficult fiscal times. It’s odd to now recall the times when marketing tended to be the first place that got hit when markets nosedived; ad spend got cut, sales staff went idle and the bean counters took over and the whole world went grey. It was about as passive as you could get without dying of corporate hypothermia. Today, in dramatic contrast, the marketing finance is moving online and the resources are being rightly ramped up to weather the downturn through sheer professionalism and nous.

So the next time the bosses cast around the firm looking for areas to cut back, it won’t be marketing they target first; and if it is, then you’re working for a dinosaur and your career path lies elsewhere anyway.

Paul Quigley,Editorial Director

http://www.digitalassetmanagement.org.uk