Our operations manager was talking to the VP of marketing of a client about whom we had just written a case study.

I was on the call because I had tried unsuccessfully for several months to get the VP to review and approve the draft of this case study that hadn’t gone all that well, so I dragged the ops manager onto the call to see whether we could unstick things. After a few telephonic slaps on the back and promises to look the piece over, they started talking about business.

“So, how are things going for you in this slowdown?”

“Not too badly somehow. How about for you?”

“Miraculously, we’re about where we were at this time last year. We’d like it to be better, but in the current climate, this isn’t so bad.”

“Yeah, we’re seeing that as well. It’s too bad, after all the quarters of growth we had, but at the moment we’re happy to be flat instead of down, the way a lot of companies are.”

“No kidding. We’ve been saying that ‘flat’ is the new ‘up.’ It’s not as good as the old ‘up,’ but it will do for now.”

I liked that: “Flat” is the new “up.”

The twenty-dollar bill is the new single.

Fifty is the new thirty.

It’s a clever turn of the phrase, one that should resonate with you as a marketing manager. See whether you can use it or one of its relatives in the next piece you write.