Advertisements in Recession

Do you think expenditure on advertisements has to be reduced during Recession? Such a period is plagued by lay-offs, non availability of funds and so on. But yes, companies should not stop promoting their brands just because of recession.

Research on marketing during a recession showed that cutting TV spending is damaging. The argument is irrefutable, but the reasons that some advertisers still reduce spending are often based on short termism and shareholder ignorance of how marketing works. Sometimes this is induced by the City, because cutting the marketing budget is an obvious way to reduce over-heads, but it costs a fortune to recover afterwards.

Smart businesses recognize that this is no way to manage a brand. Maintaining advertising expenditure gives huge benefit during a down-turn, and pays off when in an upturn. If you have to cut any marketing budget, choose anything but TV, as TV is the best medium for building brands.

When the other brands are opting for reducing their marketing expenditures, smart companies can take advantage of this by taking steps to increase brand visibility through keeping with their expenditure with respect to marketing the brand. This would be true only if companies are sure to survive the recession period.