Talk of gaining and losing sponsorships runs throughout the motorsports circuit as each series ends around October and November. Jack Daniels announced pulling away from Childress Racing; Jim Beam cut ties with Robby Gordon's Sprint Cup team; General Motors, Chrysler, Chevron and Sears all have cut ties with the No. 2 sports market, second to professional football, due to financial crisis.

In a recent motorsports meeting, I was blindsided by the fact that one of our newest "business" partners was trying to go around us to the main client in a tacit, possibly deceptive way. After the red flags and sirens died down in my head, I realized that they were trying to be smarter with their investments. 'Working smarter, but not harder,' if you will. Shouldn't we as an agency, be doing the same thing?

2010 is looking to be a positive year for bringing back marketing and brand awareness. Looking back at 2009, companies had to re-evaluate what their key strategies and investments were in order to keep some sort of ROI, but there seems to be a dim light at the end of that bleak tunnel. The budgets will not be what they once were in the previous years of fun and excitement but a little of something is better than the absolute "nothingness" agencies had to prudently work with to maintain a level or even positive ROI.