Judging by the enlightened opinion from the dais at last week’s ad;tech conference in Chicago—and by the chatter from the auditorium, show floors and breakout-session hallways—both marketers and agencies are expecting to see sunshine peeking through the economic clouds by the end of this year, and perhaps by the end of the quarter.

No one expects that recovery, if it comes, to bring marketing budgets back to pre-recession growth rates. To beat the weather metaphor to death, no one’s actually buying sunscreen. But they are taking off their hip boots and—carefully, tentatively, in a controlled fashion—seem to be getting back to the business of trying to find and talk to their customers in a fragmented media world.

The conference took place as previews of the 2009 Jack Myers Media Business suggested that overall ad spending would turn out to be down 13% to 15% for the year—certainly a sobering outlook. But as Matt Spiegel, CEO of Omnicom media Group Digital, pointed out in a roundtable, that same forecast expects that spending on digital marketing may be up 10% for this year.

In other words, marketers appear to have decided in 2009 that using digital in the right way will let them get something of the same bang, or better, for fewer bucks.

That roundtable, entitled “Follow the Money—The View from the Client Side”, included representatives from a couple of vertical industries, automotive and retail, that have seen their own share of cutbacks in the last year or two. Don Romano, president of Mazda Canada, pointed out that his company cut its ad budget by 30% in the last 24 months, along with most of its competitors. As he laid it out, the company was then faced with a choice: Were they just going to do the same marketing but on a smaller, less frequent scale—or try something new?

Mazda Canada went with the second option and chose to drive aggressively into new channels such as social marketing and mobile. Using those media involved changing the corporate culture at Mazda, he said, to make the company more open to feedback from real customers and users.

Among other initiatives, the car company has introduced MyMazda.com, an enthusiast site that lets current owners share photos and stories about their beloved vehicles, and “The Drive”, an interactive experience that puts visitors behind the wheel of their choice of two Mazda sports cars on one of four California roads.

Up north of the border, Mazda launched an alternate reality game last April that got users solving puzzles posted in multiple platforms including TV, radio, social networks, Web and out-of-home in a search for 33 keys, one of which would unlock a custom Mazda 3. The game, which ran for two months, made Mazda 3 the top-selling car in that market, Romano said.

Scott Davis, senior partner with marketing agency Prophet, said that reduced or stagnant budgets have forced marketers to focus on the customer segments that are driving the biggest proportions of their margins and to concern themselves more with what matters to those most desirable buyers. He pointed to client Best Buy and its customer-centric focus, and in particular to the issue of getting 24/7 tech help for the gadget lovers who loom large in its customer segmentation. The answer, rolled out in August of this year, was the Best Buy Twelpforce [http://twitter.com/Twelpforce], a cadre of savvy sales associates who monitor a dedicated best Buy account for tech questions.

Office supplies retailer OfficeMax has been in turnaround for about four years and thus had a head start on re-evaluating its “dumb media,” according to SVP of marketing and advertising Bob Thacker. The company best known for the “Elf Yourself” viral phenom has also taken other steps to reach out to social groups and build awareness and consideration of its brand—most recently, a blogcast and Tweetup for parents, teachers and students about getting organized for the start of the school year.

“The old model was that if you shout loud enough, maybe someone would listen,” he said. “Today we’re trying to make everything connect and to have people interact with us. At one point, when all of our budgets were getting slashed for the 47th time, I joked that we needed to hire people who gossip and just let them loose. And that’s exactly what’s happened.”

Don Hamblen, CMO of Sears Roebuck & Co., pointed out that his company’s back-to-campus campaign this year is hypertargeted to a specific audience—Facebook-using college students. “That’s an example of putting the message in a context that’s a sweet spot, because that’s how kids get to know one another,” he said.

Romano reiterated that the shift to digital has to be accompanied by a new openness on the part of the marketer to consumer opinions and need.

“It’s less about the technology, less about the creative, less about the media buy, and more about our ability to embrace the input that we’re now receiving from the messaging and networking,” he told the audience. “If you’re not willing to take that additional step, you’re wasting your money on digital marketing.”

That openness can be hard to achieve, he added. Where once Mazda had to worry mainly about how its designs would be received by the pundits who wrote for the major car magazines, “Now I have to worry about what FuzzyBunny23 thinks,” he said.