New media isn’t just for the cutting edge hipsters anymore; the suits are officially moving in.

Marketers are jumping into new media and moving their advertising budgets from traditional media to social networking sites, blogs, podcasts and mobile marketing. 

According to a new survey by Epsilon,  nearly two-thirds (63%) of the marketing executives they surveyed see an increase in their spending on interactive/digital marketing, while 59% report a decrease in traditional marketing spend. 

Where Corporate Marketers Are Focusing Their Attention

• Social computing (including word of mouth, social networking sites, viral advertising, etc.) was the most popular emerging channel with 42% of marketing executives expressing interest in adding it to their marketing mix.
• Blogs were the second most popular emerging channel: 35% of marketing executives want to pursue blogs and 19% already use blogs
• Almost one-third of CMOs mentioned podcasting as an area of interest: 31% are interested in adding podcasting to their marketing mix and 18% already have.
• Mobile devices also elicited interest: 29% are interested in Mobile Devices (Phones/PDAs) and 22% have added them to their marketing mix.

Other highlights of the report:
 

• 65% say that the money spent on advertising as a whole will decrease due to the current economy.
• In contrast, 94% of CMOs and marketing executives agreed with the statement, ‘A tough economic period is precisely the time when marketing plays a key role.’
• CMOs are shifting to more targeted and measurable marketing strategies. When asked how their firm determines their target market for each channel, 50% stated that they use data driven marketing techniques.

The survey was conducted in August 2008. Participants included 175 U.S. Chief Marketing Officers and marketing executives of some of the largest brands in the nation. 27% of respondents work at companies with $10 billion or more in annual revenues last year.