Are you in the greater Los Angeles area? If so, we invite you to join ERA and Electronic Retailer magazine for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres in Santa Monica. This event is free for ERA members and retailers. Non-member suppliers pay only $99 (credit this fee to your ERA membership when you join within 30 days of the event). To RSVP, e-mail Katie White at kwhite@retailing.org. The Casa del Mar, Hotel by the Sea is the picturesque setting for an evening of building new relationships and catching up with industry colleagues and friends. While we encourage you to let loose and have a good time, plan on having a designated driver because we’d hate for you to end up in a situation like the man in this video!

For many marketers and retailers, there is something even scarier than a DUI—and that’s a recession! If you can’t join ERA in Santa Monica on Wednesday, please join us remotely from wherever you may be for Thursday’s webinar: Recession-proof Your Business. Sponsored by West Corporation, the webinar will be held from 2:30-3:30 EST and is free for ERA members and retailers; non-member suppliers may join for $99. For more information, please contact Ashley Cavell by e-mail at acavell@retailing.org or via phone at 703-908-1020. 

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Pick up the newspaper: Our country and the world are in a state of anxiety about the economy, especially in light of a potential recession. What does that mean to us as marketers? Just how does the recession affect direct response advertising? Recessions are different from other economic downturns and need to be approached differently, but there are ways to weather the storm.

History teaches us that recessions reward the aggressive advertiser and penalize the timid one. Indeed, firms that maintained or increased their advertising expenditures during the 1981-1982 recession averaged significantly higher sales growth, both during the recession and for the following three years, than those that eliminated or decreased advertising.

By 1985, sales of companies that were aggressive recession advertisers had risen 256 percent over those that didn’t keep up their advertising. Why? One reason is that a recessionary market can provide an opportunity for businesses to build a greater share of market through aggressive advertising. Sometimes, we need to remind ourselves about the short-term benefits of advertising: It creates sales immediately; it generates added business from current customers; and it brings in new leads and prospects. In short, as one marketer pointed out, “When times are good, you should advertise. When times are bad, you must advertise.”

One trait of a true recession lies with shifts in consumer patterns. We can no longer expect even our core base of customers to behave in ways familiar to us and comfortable to them. Preparing for changes in consumer behavior will allow us to jumpstart new messaging, platforms and technologies—when this makes strategic sense—to capture the attention of both loyal and new customers. One false assumption is that it’s safe to reduce the advertising budget if the competition is reducing theirs. Research shows that companies maintaining or increasing advertising during periods of economic slow-down will boost market share. (more…)

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