Marketing Spend: Going Against the Grain

Granted, Bob Liodice has a vested interest in holding his opinion. All the same, I tend to share it, intuitively. Especially for our organization. Some data to buttress the opinion would be nice though.

The latest trend in advertising: budget shearing. So says a recent survey
from the Association of National Advertisers, released today.

The majority response from the small-scale survey (a neat 100 respondents)
is that marketers across industries are bracing their ad budgets for some form
of reduction. Fifty-three percent of those polled said they expected a cutback
within the next six months; 87% said they're already weathering the pinch.

"We've seen this before," Bob Liodice, president-CEO of the ANA, told Ad
Age. "Ad spending tracks remarkably close to GDP."

...However, such cutbacks might not be the necessary route. According to
Mr. Liodice, marketers who have done just the opposite in the face of economic
slowdowns -- that is, increased their spending -- saw more sustained growth when
they emerged from the storm.

"It's a great opportunity to capture some shared market," Mr. Liodice said. "Effective marketing spending during economic downturns is not about how much you spend, but also how you spend it."