Rearranging the deckchairs?

Steering the economy toward health will decide the future of advertising more than Web 2.0 or what Justin Bieber tweets. Part of Zeitgeist recently presented to a group of people on the meaning of luxury, post-recession. Those brands that did best in Zeitgeist’s eyes were judged to have done so because of their cognisance of the larger world around them; the context of their communications.

Currently, any wider context should include an assessment of the national if not the global economy. The economy has limped out of recession to recovery (albeit a jobless one), but much danger lies ahead. David Rothkopf,  visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endownment and a former senior official in the Clinton administration, penned an excellent article in today’s FT on the importance of leadership and management of the economy in the wake of several of President Obama’s key economic advisers abandoning ship. Though slightly off-tack for Zeitgeist to point to such an article, it bears reading by anyone interested in future trends, such as peace and prosperity. Its teachings can just as easily be applied to the hierarchy of an agency and its pronouncement on where the buck must eventually stop.