The relationship between politics, the economy and marketing communications can be likened to three friends in an out-of-control airplane who are fighting over the last parachute. It’s going to take some good luck and cooperation for all three of them to make it.

But, as far as the construction industry is concerned, “We’re not yet dead.” In fact, the news, relative to all the doom and gloom you and I have been hearing lately, is pretty darn good, considering.

Many people who know what I do for a living have asked if our business is okay – given, they say, that most companies cut advertising first when times are tough. Except that hasn’t happened. It could – it might – but it hasn’t. We have a couple new accounts coming on board in first quarter and our clients, by-and-large, are holding or increasing their budgets.

Not all but most. They’re betting on the future, not against it. We expect our best year ever.

It’s understandable people would wonder and fear the future when the media delights in bad news. But, building products manufacturers often work 6 months to a year in advance, so when the bubble burst in late September, the ETA for the hit was March+whatever fills the pipeline in the mean time. So if sales drop a full 50% this year, the hit won’t come until June/July. Most observers here think the recovery curve will start in 3rd or 4th Quarter, meaning that the economic softness will hit sales in late ’09.

For most companies in the construction industry, cash flow will be the bigger problem, exacerbated by unavailable credit to owner/developers. That will change in ’09 because there’s a lot of capital that jumped out of equities during the burst and is still looking for a home that’s safe – like property. It will need to invested before 12/31/09 so the peak of the credit crunch may disappear by the end of the construction season.

Manufacturers and contractors should try to be creative about financing as a means of setting themselves apart from competitors. Another problem for building products manufacturers, design/build firms and specialty contractors will be cost of labor if 600,000 people (including idle laborers) are pulled into government jobs, as promised by the new administration.

The biggest problem for building products manufacturers, design/build firms and specialty contractors is, and will remain, demand. Maybe a good use of stimulus dollars would be to demolish uninhabited, unusable, dilapidated and hazardous urban property – there’s plenty of it.  Reducing supply would guarantee construction work as the economy rebounds.

If vast tracts in urban areas were available to receive fresh design and land-use ideas, the resulting construction projects would result in putting high-tax properties on the roles where tax-eating properties now exist, and would productively employ architects, engineers, contractors and laborers – for decades.