Unilever, Walmart, P&G Buck the Short-Term Trend†

As Recession Forces Cuts, Leaders Build for Future With Marketing, R&D

Advertising Age, June 29, 2009 — It's been said over and over: There's no time like recession, when competitors are retreating, to ramp up innovation and marketing to grab share.

So far, the competitors have done their part. U.S. trademark applications through mid-June were down 17% from a year ago; patent application growth stalled last year after more than a decade of high single-digit annual growth; and ad spending plunged 14% last quarter, according to TNS Media Research.

The intrepid share-grabbers have been harder to find. Now, however, as the dust settles from the fourth-quarter financial collapse, a growing number of them appear to be sticking their heads out of the bunkers to lay the groundwork for long-term growth in a short-term-obsessed world.

Package-Goods Brands Lose Loyalists in Recession†

Study: More Than a Third of Formerly Faithful Consumers Abandoned Crest, Hunt's, PineSol, Tylenol

Advertising Age, June 22, 2009 — Brand loyalty appears to have taken a beating in the recession, at least in package goods. A study from Catalina Marketing and the CMO Council finds that for the average brand, more than half of consumers — 52% — who were highly loyal to certain package-goods brands in 2007 became markedly less so last year.

Brands left to ponder price of loyalty†

Financial Times, June 21, 2009 — Big brands’ best customers have been defecting in droves since the beginning of the US recession, according to a study. By this year, more than half of a typical US brand’s most loyal shoppers in 2007 had switched to rival products.

Recession Lesson: Throw Out Your Old Algorithms†

Q&A With John Wallis, Global Head of Marketing and Brand Strategy, Hyatt

Advertising Age, June 15, 2009 — After 28 years at Hyatt, John Wallis was named head of marketing at the hotel chain in November of last year. Resigned not to let the recession limit Hyatt's marketing activity, he launched a massive marketing effort. The campaign, which is intended to introduce its redesigned loyalty program, awards three winners — one from North America, Europe and Asia — of an essay contest 365 free nights at any Hyatt hotel worldwide; another 30,000 people will win one free night. More than 87,000 people, 79% of which were customers, entered an essay.

A Cheap Date, With Child Care by Ikea

New York Times, June 11, 2009 — IKEA’S inexpensive, contemporary furniture has attracted frugal shoppers for years, but a different kind of bargain is luring deal hunters to the Swedish retailer as the economy struggles to recover. And this offer doesn’t even require you to use an Allen wrench.

Over-stretched, money-conscious parents are using the store’s supervised play area as their personal baby-sitting service.

Why Walmart Is Getting Serious About Marketing†

Giant Attributes Success to Segmentation, Market Research and Advertising

Advertising Age, June 8, 2009 — It's marketing's time at Walmart.

It's easy to become complacent when you are a $401 billion company whose shareholder meeting gets teen idol Miley Cyrus out of bed before 8 a.m. to perform for more than 15,000 employees as a warm-up act for American Idol Kris Allen. But Walmart executives know that if the recession abates, they will face a challenge holding onto shoppers who've been introduced, or reintroduced, to the retailer as they've traded down to save money.

Food Firms Cook Up Ways to Combat Rare Sales Slump†

Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2009 — The packaged-food industry has long touted itself as recession-proof. Strapped consumers are shattering that assumption, setting off a frenzy in the nation's supermarket aisles and cooking labs.

In the last quarter of 2008, consumer spending on food fell by an inflation-adjusted 3.7% from the previous quarter — its steepest drop in 62 years, the Commerce Department said. So, food giants are racing to adapt to what they believe is a lasting shift in eating and shopping habits.

With Shoppers Pinching Pennies, Some Big Retailers Get the Message

New York Times, April 13, 2009 — IN real estate, the saying goes, the golden rule is location, location, location. For retailers in a recession as severe as this one, it is value, value, value.

As shoppers remain reluctant to open their wallets, stores are still scrambling to adjust advertising and marketing strategies to play up the value aspects of what they sell. Even as retail sales data for March suggested improving results at some chains, consumers are hesitating to buy much beyond groceries, gasoline, vitamins and candy.

Study: Cutting Spending Hurts Brands Long Term†

Following Boom/Bust Cycle Flirts With Danger

Advertising Age, April 6, 2009 — Household and personal care might once have seemed recession-resistant, but last year U.S.-based personal-care marketers actually cut ad spending faster than the general market. That could be potentially damaging for their brands, according to one study that shows that marketers that cut spending during a downturn lost share to private labels — share they didn't regain.

From buy, buy to bye-bye

The recession will have a lasting impact on the way people shop

The Economist, April 2, 2009 — “WANT IT!” screamed the words plastered on the walls, counters and shopping bags in the flagship emporium of Saks, a big American retailer, on Fifth Avenue in New York. The same exhortation was emblazoned in huge letters on a giant red and white ball that revolved slowly in the middle of the main sales floor. Saks’s spring marketing campaign, which came to an end on April 1st, made its brazen appeal to greed in a bid to drum up sales in a dire market. But the exclamation mark in its “Want It!” tagline should perhaps have been a question mark instead.