With the economic challenges facing the U.S. in 2008, the marketing budget in Corporate America will fall victim to intense scrutiny. To ensure continued access to the budgets necessary to adequately promote their brands, marketing executives are continuing to focus on maximizing the ROI of each marketing dollar spent. This document provides an overview of the factors that marketing executives consider essential for 2008, based on the findings of the CMO Council’s Marketing Outlook 2008 publication.