Last year I made some marketing predictions for 2009. I thought it might be timely to see how accurate I was before I hypothesised my marketing predictions for 2010.

Prediction #1: Marketing budgets will be slashed by 35%.

Looks like I wasnt too far off actually. Forresters Laura Ramos found that marketing budgets went down by 23% in 2009. Its not quite as dire as I predicted, but that being said, there arent many things people would be happy losing almost a quarter of (unless of course youre Jenny Craig and your thing is Magda Szubanski).

Prediction #2: Marketing expectations will be raised by 35%.

Actually, Id like your feedback on this one as its so subjective. Do you think marketing departments, agencies and people in general had more pressure to perform in the face of a GFC? Or were we let off the hook a bit; given an excuse even?

Prediction #3: Facebook will not be sold, Twitter will not be monetised and MySpace will grow at precisely the same rate as the American economy.

Check. Check. Check… Actually, the US economy shrank by an average of 3.2% this year. MySpace either shrank by 20% or grew by 5%, depending on who you ask. I was close though.

Prediction #4: A major Australian corporation will get its first social media marketing officer/director.

Telstra hired Mike Hickinbotham as its social media senior advisor in December 2008, so I was only a month out! There are quite a few others now too, but the Telcos are definitely leading the way.

Prediction #5: Someone you know will be made redundant and start a new web-based consultancy with a misspelled domain name before moving to Northern NSW, assuring you they always had an interest in permaculture.

Hello to my good friend and former Brisbane agency CEO Cos, now at Communicator1.com.au.

Prediction #6: The following will officially be declared dead and later discovered to be, in actual fact, alive:

• Advertising (I think I was guilty of declaring advertising dead by way of social media on a number of occasions, before realising that big-budget brand campaigns really are still a damn effective way of giving credibility to a message people discover via word of mouth. I also think Facebook advertising is pretty much the bees knees.)
• The American Dream (The news for the US economy and the housing market in particular was dire at the start of 2009, but mid-way through the year things started to turn. Now the country is out of recession, shazam!)
• Fidel Castro (Dudes still kickin)

Prediction #7: The following will finally be exposed as having been dead since June 2005:

• Banner ads (Theres still hope.)
• Kim Jong Il (Not dead, but apparently, according to Wikipedia via the North Korean state media, he is an avid golf fan and routinely shoots three or four holes-in-one per round. Im guessing that God has kept him alive to take from where Tiger Woods left off, so I can be forgiven for being wrong.)

Prediction #8: You will wake one morning to find that Google has bought your competitor and now makes a version of your best-selling product:

• And it’s better than yours
• And it’s free

Sucked in realestate.com.au. And the year aint over yet… Make sure you check www.googlelabs.com for updates.

Prediction #9: Radio. LOL!

I thought it was going to be a funny year for radio, but who knew just how hilarious concentration camps and molestation could actually be!

Prediction #10: You’re not in the car or housing industries are you?

OK, so I was wrong. Damn.

Whats going to happen in 2010? Check out my predictions here.