A graduate student contacted me looking for articles and insights into recession marketing. There’s no single answer to that question. David Jones, global CEO, Euro RSCG, said in Advertising Age, February 16, 2009, said it well:

“The reality today is that we are all driving in fog [great line], and no one really knows if the fog will lift in one year, two years or more.”

That said, the data is clear: eMarketer's latest surveys show a significant drop in spending for media and advertising and a survey from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) indicates that 77% of US advertisers are cutting their media spending this year. Expenditures for search engine optimization (SEO), social media, mobile and lead generation are the exceptions, spending in these categories are up, which is more evidence that engagement marketing is replacing interruption marketing.

Back to the question, depending on your brand and value proposition, assuming you have one, there are multiple marketing paths available.

One path is WalMart's: They know their brand, listen to their audience and create messages to address (market to) their audience's needs. WalMart fills the "affordability" need and that is a compelling value proposition during a recession. In WalMart’s most recent ads they’ve focused on women’s cosmetics, which to many is both a large and, as it relates to price-point, discretionary expense.

A high-end or luxury brands need another path since they need to be more careful promoting "affordability," even in a recession, lest they undermine the prestige aspect of their brand permanently.

Nordstrom's has to be careful marketing affordability since they tend to serve more affluent clientele than WalMart. The reason is once the recession is over they may never get the prestige attribute of their brand back. They must work to keep their market position in the “Neiman-Marcus light” range and not drift into the “Target plus” range. Tactically that means they can discount sub-brands (Cole-Haan, Coach, etc.) one or two at a time and do more promotion of their private label, a lower cost option for a high quality product, but they can’t go all-in with everyday-low-pricing.

Nordstrom's best strategy is to focus; to hunker down (read: don't expect revenues to increase), and work on strategies and plans to take market share when the recovery begins, which is what they’re doing.

Here are some more examples of what companies are doing taken from Fortune, WSJ Online and www.a-moracle.com, a website we own that is dedicated to marketing and marketing research.

• Staples recently launched a group of high-quality private label products, such as leather portfolios. This was a channel strategy partially driven by the recession. They “went after customers who would buy those products in a mall setting – and won many of them,” according to CEO Ron Sargent.
• TD America CEO, Fred Tomczyk apparently likes recession-driven low pricing. He said, “Dislocation drives opportunity. In October we increased our marketing spend. We were able to get more share of voice for the same dollar because ad rates were dropping.”
• Partner and head of global customer strategy practice at Bain & Co., Rob Markey, made a great point: “Downturns are when the biggest shifts in market share happen. But don’t try to go after different types of customers. The companies that do this well focus on the customers that are at the core of their business.”
• NASCAR would seem to agree with the Bain approach. In August 2008 they announced that the "Southern 500" would return to the Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina in May 2009. Most of my hard-core NASCAR obsessed friends are excited about the return to, what they consider, a tradition. The first Southern 500 ran at Darlington in 1950 and was NASCAR’s first and only 500 mile race until the Daytona 500 debuted in 1959.They all seem to know this. Amazing.
• Christian Dior has decided to go more upscale by unveiling a $2,300 Trente bag as well as a line of Lady Dior bags that start at $1,400. “People are looking for value and asking for quality now more than ever,” says Claudia D’Arpizio, a Bain & Co. partner.
• Finally, Tiffany has taken another path; with holiday sales down 21% they reduced staff and marketing spending. In addition, for Valentine’s Day they began advertising gifts under $250 on their website (a lower cost channel than retail) to show that luxury can be more affordable. It will be interesting to see if there are any long-term affects on the brand.