Everyone is nervous about what effect the economy will have on the biz. Recently, a bunch of media chiefs and brand leaders have made predictions at Advertising Week. Here's the run down.

John Durham, formerly head of business development for Carat North America and co-founder of Catalyst:SF, said:

"I think smart marketers realize that now is the time they can get good inventory without having to spend Super Bowl amounts of money. That's what makes our business fun. I'm not going to say that it's going to be really great right now, but digital advertising works."

Sarah Fay, CEO of Carat, has said elsewhere that:

"I would say the pressure we are facing comes from what our clients are facing. Clients need to achieve more for less budget, and it's not necessarily because their budgets are going down, but because marketing activities are fragmenting. And the market is delivering less for more. We're seeing escalating CPMs and diminishing GRPs in all of the usual places."

Marc Goldstein, president and CEO of media agency conglomerate GroupM North America, says his crystal ball predicts:

"-that many companies would not cut back on advertising in 2009, despite the troubled economic conditions."

Irwin Gottlieb said at Advertising Week that:

"consumer confidence is better than one might expect given the downturn in the economy and rising fuel prices. One explanation may be that "the consumer can't comprehend what has happened" on Wall Street, he said. "Time will tell.""

That's right, Irwin. Everyone is just too stupid to realize that the economy is in the shit. Yeah. Meanwhile, CMOs of consumer brands are not as upbeat as the media guys.

Wenda Harris Millard, co-CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and Cheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook, are predicting harder times for consumers and brands on their own Advertising Week panel.

Shall we make bets? Two to one that the client side kids have it right. It's going to be a rougher road the media agencies are publicly pushing, but you know those guys got together and were like, "What's the party line gonna be?"

More: The King Of Advertising: Irwin Gotlieb

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