When times are good, you should advertise. When times are bad, you must advertise.

November 14th, 2008 by Kevin Flynn

I recently discovered a blog from Michael Glass aimed at growing new business:

http://fuelingnewbusiness.com/

At Martino Flynn we have a philosophy of “Grow or Die” so, obviously, we like his blog. And not only does that mean getting new business, it also means we need to grow our client’s businesses everyday. Sure times are hard but I’ll never forget what one client told me during the recession of the early 90s. “We have chosen not to participate in this recession.” And you know what, his company grew during that time.

Anyway, I pulled an excerpt from Michael’s blog. Here are some examples of some companies that chose to grow during hard times.

“A series of six studies conducted by the research firm of Meldrum & Fewsmith showed conclusively that advertising aggressively during recessions not only increases sales but increases profits and market share. This fact has held true for all post-World War II recessions studied by American Business Press starting in 1949.

Kraft salad dressings and Jiff peanut butter both raised marketing budgets during the last recession and increase sales by 70% and 57%, respectively.

Pizza Hut increased their marketing budget and increased sales by 61%.

Taco Bell increased sales by 40% by increasing their advertising expenditures.

Wal-Mart smothered competitors with Every Day Low Prices during the 2000-2001 post-bubble slowdown.

During the 1989-91 recessionary period, most of the beer industry cut budgets, but Coors Light and Bud Light increased theirs and saw sales jump 15% and 16% respectively.

Agencies know that advertising in an economic downturn is not a drain on their clients profits but can actually significantly contribute to and increase in profits and market share.”

We’d love to hear what you’re doing to avoid participating in this recession.

- Kevin Flynn

This entry was posted by Kevin Flynn on Friday, November 14th, 2008 and is filed under Ad business, Brand Strategy, Business, Business Blogs, MF, Marketing, News, Rants and Raves, Sites We Like. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.