Marketing Week tackles a dilemma facing many brands as the economy continues its downward slide. In the aftermath of ‘Armageddon autumn’ will consumers cut the froth this Christmas and save their pennies, or turn to luxury brands to cheer themselves up?

It’s probably too early to tell which way the pendulum will swing in the long term, but the indications so far incline more towards thrift than extravagance.

Just when you thought you’d heard of everything … a company in Japan has launched a new service that scans brainwaves to measure consumers’ response to new products.

‘Neuro marketing’ is described as an ‘innovative approach to marketing research’ in The Telegraph. The repeat exposure to the same advert or product, it is claimed, can enable scientists to uncover subconscious responses.

Sounds all every hi-tech - until you get to the part that describes how volunteer consumers have to wear a specially-designed baseball cap to measure their brainwaves.

As many people have noted, Barack Obama ran a well-organised presidential campaign, leaning heavily on modern marketing techniques.

Scott-blogger goes as far as to say Obama’s electoral victory was thanks more to a brilliant marketing strategy than better political ideas. While it’s beyond our remit to comment on that here, we agree with him that Obama’s campaign demonstrated a lot of clever marketing thinking.

Marketers can learn a lot of useful lessons here.