While acknowledging the damage this recession has done to the personal and professional lives of so many people, Freddie Laker also argues that our dark economic cloud has brought with it a significant silver lining for marketers.

"I think this might be the best thing that has happened to our industry in decades," he says in a post at the Take Me To Your Leader blog. "[It has] forced us to innovate, reinvent ourselves, think more strategically, and, most importantly, [achieve] a level of sophistication and maturity that, in my opinion, has been desperately missing from digital advertising."

Laker identifies five positive trends that have developed strength during the downturn—and will continue to shape how we do what we do in a beneficial way. Here are a few of the good changes we've made:

We're thinking of customer service as marketing. Even large companies are using social media tools to engage their customers and develop meaningful ongoing relationships. "[T]hey are doing so in a way that feels natural and adds value to the conversation," notes Laker, "all while driving additional sales, boosting loyalty, and lowering operational and marketing costs."

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