Henry Blodget is back again with another post on the “online ad recession.”   It’s a summary post that lists all of the other “sky is falling” posts they’ve made over at the Silicon Alley Insider for the past three months.  The amazing thing is that for all of their strong rhetoric there is almost no data to support Henry’s conclusions.

Why do I even care about this?  The problem is that influential folks like Henry can actually talk us into the very situation he is forecasting.  If I’m a CFO at a major advertiser and I think there is a recession starting, maybe I pull in the ad budgets a bit until we see which way things go.  When a few companies start to do this and others follow, the perception turns into a reality.

So, here’s my challenge.  I think Henry’s data and logic are completely flawed and his claims are baseless. I believe that we are only seeing the beginning of a massive shift of advertising dollars from offline to online. Unlike in 2000, this time real companies with real budgets are seeing tremendous success marketing online and are aggressively flocking to the channel that works best – online advertising.  That trend will completely overwhelm what’s happening cyclically in the lending market. 

Honestly, do you think the 10 pounds of direct mail you receive each week is producing better ROI for marketers than paid search?  If budgets do get cut, do you thinks marketers might cut that back first?

If you think I’m wrong, please let me know.  And, please provide some data to back it up.