Archive for April, 2009
Monday, April 27th, 2009
There’s one good thing about a bad economy that many marketers forget about, since 99.999% of the news is doom and gloom playing with our brains — in a really bad economy, people are more apt to change their buying habits.
Yes, that may mean buying less of a product or service in your category. And this is where some corporate types with lack of imagination will see cutting back on marketing as the band-aid solution to their problems until they ride out the recession. But the question isn’t really whether to cut back on marketing or even spend more on it. You have to start with the very product or service you offer and ask yourself how you are going to adapt that product in order to give it increased versatility and in turn, value.
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Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009
Over the years hundreds of studies have been conducted to prove companies should maintain advertising during a recession.
In the 1920’s advertising executive Roland S. Vaile tracked 200 companies through the recession of 1923. He reported in the April 1927 issue of the Harvard Business Review that the biggest sales increases throughout the period were rung up by companies that advertised the most.
After World War II, Buchen Advertising, Inc. decided to plot the sales of a large number of advertisers through successive recessions. In 1947, it began measuring the annual advertising expenditures of each company. When they correlated the figures with sales and profit trends before, during and after the recessions of 1949, 1954, 1958 and 1961, they found that almost without exception sales and profits dropped off at companies that cut back on advertising.
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Category Advertising, Economy, Marketing | Tags: Tags: Advertising, Business, Companies, Down, Economy, Marketing, Recession, Sales, Strategy,
Monday, April 13th, 2009
City Talent, Close to Home
In most small or mid-sized companies you are working with talent from the bigger agencies that either left for a better work/life balance or to get the opportunity to be more creative. Clients are getting the same level of thought and creativity found from larger creative firms, without the larger overhead and costs.
Senior Management Supervision
At Intake Studio, the principals are involved in the daily activities on each project. Quite often, at larger firms, a junior account staff is responsible for important decisions about a client’s vision. Navigating today’s economic climate is too important to be left to a less-seasoned staff.
Can I Have That Yesterday?
A boutique company is used to being more nimble and responsive, and can adapt to the changes that need to happen quickly in times like these. In larger firms, they are just not equipped to turn new ideas around as quickly.
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Friday, April 10th, 2009
As a small business owner in the murky waters of a bad economy, you may be scrambling for solutions on how to keep your company afloat. Letting the fear take over, and not being true to yourself and your company’s mission, can be a recipe for recession-related disaster.
If you own a small business, you’ve probably been losing sleep at night lately. With the economy in trouble, businesses everywhere are feeling the crunch, but no one is more worried than small business owners. While fear may drive you to go into survival mode and compromise your values, you may be making a huge mistake that in the long run can hurt your business far worse than the recession.
You can’t let yourself, or your business be paralyzed by fear. In times like these it’s more important than ever to maintain your brand identity and focus on what makes your company stand out, what makes it great. You have to be a ‘fearless fish out of water’—shining a light on those qualities that make your company different and more desirable than the other businesses in your industry. Playing up what makes you special could be the very thing that keeps you in business.
So, what should small business owners do at a time like this? It’s time to refocus on your company’s core values, to remind yourself and your employees what it is that sets your company apart from all the rest, and most importantly, to be fearless. Now more than ever is when you should be staying true to your company’s brand by sticking to projects where you can excel.
7 steps to being fearless in the small business world, and how they will help you survive and thrive in this economy:
Go fishing for the real you
It’s time to focus on what your business does better than your competition and put that out there to your clients and prospects. Maybe you’re a boutique ad agency that can create any kind of campaign, but your best work is in B2B advertising.
You have to peel away all the layers that have made you a jack-of-all-trades and focus on the area that you are truly passionate about so you can excel. That’s your vein of gold. Sure, some things are a guaranteed sale, but your clients can get that at any agency. Get back to being creative. That’s where you can show your clients your value, and impressing your customers is how you can ensure you keep bringing in the revenue.
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Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
10 tips for the advertising industry during the economic downturn:
1. Don’t cut your prices - research shows that by discounting your brand during a recession it will take you 7 years to recover to your original price level.
2. Focus on your brand strengths (real not imagined!), and emphasise heritage and classic / traditional values - while the crisis is on people tend to hark back to the memories of the good old days.
3. Do exploit the fact that your competitors may have shrunk their advertising spending - you can rapidly win back mind share as well if you have the courage to act now. Then rely on your operations and product teams to keep you ahead long-term.
4. Brands that invest in marketing during a recession tend to gain market share when the recession ends. It might seem wrong to splash out on a new ad campaign when you are cutting staff, but if the message is right and the campaign is well executed, the investment will pay off in the long run.
5. Bundle up: instead of cutting prices on your top brands, offer something for free as an add-on to your core (non-discounted) brand. So if you happen to sell bags, don’t discount your bags but throw in a free keyring instead.
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Category Advertising, Economy, Marketing, Small Business | Tags: Tags: Advertising, Advertising Industry, Agency, Budget, Economy, Marketing, Recession, Tips,
Monday, April 6th, 2009
Following Boom/Bust Cycle Flirts With Danger
Household and personal care might once have seemed recession-resistant, but last year U.S.-based personal-care marketers actually cut ad spending faster than the general market. That could be potentially damaging for their brands, according to one study that shows that marketers that cut spending during a downturn lost share to private labels — share they didn’t regain.
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Friday, April 3rd, 2009
It’s not easy to go out and start a business. Yet somehow, small businesses represent 75% of our gross domestic product. Isn’t that astounding?
It’s especially amazing in light of today’s headlines. We focus so much on the GMs and the Chryslers, we can completely overlook the real engines that drive our country, and the real engine that will pull us out of this recession.
The same is true in the marketing industry. Right now, our country needs these scrappy small-agency entrepreneurs to keep doing their thing, because they will indeed dig us out of this mess faster than the holding companies and big agency networks. No offense. I’m confident that larger agencies will offer great help to their large clients, but what I’m thinking about right now is the other 75%.
The smaller agencies that make up part of that 75% and will be doing the marketing to help lead us out of recession deserve a tip of the hat. The reality is they can do things for their clients the big monster shops can’t. With fewer people and less overhead, they offer the nimble and fast approach to problems a lot of nascent brands need.
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Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
“For one, they communicate better. Without the din and prattle of bureaucracy, people listen as well as talk; and since there are fewer of them they generally know and understand each other. Second, small companies move faster. They know the penalties for hesitation in the marketplace. Third, in small companies, with fewer layers and less camouflage, the leaders show up very clearly on the screen. Their performance and its impact are clear to everyone. And, finally, smaller companies waste less. They spend less time in endless reviews and approvals and politics and paper drills. They have fewer people; therefore they can only do the important things. Their people are free to direct their energy and attention toward the marketplace rather than fighting bureaucracy.”
-Former GE CEO Jack Welch, explaining why he admires entrepreneurial companies.
