Resolved to Keep on Marketing, Even in Tight-Fisted Times
New York Times, October 20, 2008 — Attendees of a big annual conference for marketers, held here last week, could have been forgiven for believing they had stumbled into a symposium for scholars of American history in the 1930s.
These are some of the words and phrases heard during the conference, the 98th annual meeting of the Association of National Advertisers: “financial crisis,” “scary,” “foreclosure,” “economic crisis,” “difficult times,” “the chaotic financial markets,” “devastating,” “under siege” and “unprecedented.”
Whether the members of the association — 400 companies that together spend an estimated $100 billion a year on advertising and other forms of marketing — are willing to stick to the spending plans they made “before the globe went mad,” as Mr. Frampton put it, is a crucial question.
If marketers cut budgets, that could intensify the recent sharp downturn in consumer spending. Conversely, by maintaining — or increasing — spending levels, they just might shorten the length of whatever recession might be coming (if it is not already here).
