Sometimes it takes an outside perspective to see if you’re going the right way, or the wrong way.  When you’re driving your own car, or brand, dealing with your day-to-day challenges and battling for resources it can be hard to take the long view.  It’s all too easy to say, as John Candy does in Planes, Trains and Automobiles, “how do they know where we’re going?”  I’ve got bad news for you – they know exactly where you’re going.

If you’re cutting your investment in marketing today you are going the wrong way.

In spite of study after study, when the economy turns south marketers cut spending.  Empirical evidence tells us all it’s the wrong thing do, but how can we resist?  (For some ideas, here’s a great article from Harvard Business School professor John Quelch.  http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5878.html )

For most companies, their marketing spend, while large in absolute terms, isn’t a huge line item on the corporate ledger (direct sellers like Temperpedic and The Snuggie are exceptions), so why does it get cut?  The answer is quite simple: because it’s easy.  Marketing dollars, particularly advertising dollars, when cut fall directly and immediately to the bottom line. No one has to be laid off.  Other difficult decisions can be avoided.  And since too many CEO’s view marketing as an expense rather than an investment, it’s the first thing to go.  The reality is that CEO’s need to look at marketing as more of a balance sheet item than income statement item. 

 ”…some of the biggest names in branding (including Procter and Gamble who survived the crash of the 1930s) are suggesting marketers at all levels do just the opposite [of cutting budgets] and are even going as far as encouraging companies to stay on track, but use dollars carefully.”  From “market onward, market stronger” – positions shared at recent annual Association of National Advertisers Conference.

 ”It is incredibly important to be risk-takers in the economic climate we’re in. People have the tendency to pull back. In economic times like these, you don’t hunker down and go in the bunker.”  Hewlett-Packard VP and CMO Michael Mendenhall

Those brave souls who can fight, and it is a fight right now, to invest in their brand will see their investments deliver meaningful dividends. 

Do you know where you’re going?