Shaping Marketing and Communications During the next Recovery

As the recession lingers on we often wonder if we will return to a period of prosperity. History tells us we will and it also tells us that we struggling with the dark areas of recession and feeling sorry for ourselves when all of a sudden we find we are in prosperity again. In fact a recent study showed that most analysts and pundits are as correct in their guesses on the economy as a bench warming ball player is about getting a hit. That's roughly 20 percent.

The big question I am wondering is if we will emerge a little chastened or if we will jump right into more excess and create another warped bubble where it's a party train and we think the good times can never end. Marketing and communications have a lot to do with creating bubbles and excess and of course we bear a lot of the costs when the bubble bursts. I am often reminded of the person who parties to excess on Friday night, only to swear off it Saturday morning and then goes out and does it twice as hard.

One tool that is rarely exercised in marketing and communications is the tool or restraint. Sure we hear the old cliche about striking while the iron is hot and so on. What we rarely see is marketing to step up and try to guide the brand so that rather than being some rickety old roller coaster, we are a high speed thruway where our top of the line sports car can cruise easily along. Marketing needs to guide and not just tag along for the ride.

Another tool to ensure marketing survives the next great wave is to make sure we are a council to the C-level executives. The C's like to go on a spending spree when their is a few extra dollars and they tend to spend like sailors on liberty. Marketing should force a strategic focus on spend money on what is most important and not necessarily what is fashionable or even worse, what is transient. While we all know that companies who spend more on marketing and communications during a recession often emerge stronger, we have to make sure that the position of strength is not squandered on either an early celebration or a bunker mentality.

Good times are destined to return that much we know. Sadly, I don't have a crystal ball which allows me to say when it will end, but when it does marketing and communications need to be ready. It's time to get off the crazy bubble train and bring marketing and communications into the world of manageable and strategic partnership within the organization. Rather than be a cost center we need to prove, yet again, that we are a premium revenue producing arm and, through our management of the brand, a vital component of the organization.