“Market leaders market their way through a recession; all other companies try to save their way through a recession.” (Mike Ganey, Senior VP, ad agency Howard, Merrell)

These are tough times, to be sure, but they seem tougher because they are so oppressively omnipresent and so aggressively in your face. It seems that every time you turn around and everywhere you turn, you are confronted by bad news. A pall seems to have settled over the landscape, a pall that is pervasive and pernicious. There is no light apparent at the end of the endless tunnel that we have constructed in our minds.

But – trust me – this too shall pass. There will be a turn-around. It is an eventuality framed by a certainty.

True, you’ve got to survive the recession – or the depression, if you like, or the Second Great Depression, as some like, but when it is over – and it will be over – where and what will your company be?

Might I introduce, for your consideration, the PIMS experience. The PIMS (Profit Impact of Marketing Strategy) database, includes the real world business performance experiences of more than 3,000 businesses representing 16,000+ years of data. Originating at GE in the mid-sixties and further refined at the Harvard Business School, the PIMS database has been managed by the autonomous Strategic Planning Institute since 1975. The strategic data includes information on markets, competitors, quality, structure, environment and financial performance.

Its findings, endorsed by the Corporate Executive Board (I was, for a number of years, a member of the CEB Marketing Leadership Council), are illuminating:

• Marketing spend does not significantly damage return on capital employed (ROCE) during a recession;
• Companies curtailing their marketing spend damage their profitability when the economy recovers;
• Companies that increase marketing spend and that commit to product development during recessions reap the largest future rewards.

The supporting data applied to both B2C and B2B companies. It applied to companies equally in the U.S. and the U.K.

There are reasons for this:

• Brand building requires consistency. Companies can grow share by continuing to generate high levels of awareness, which ultimately translates into customer-perceived value or quality;
• R&D requires similar commitment. Technological advances don’t zig and zag in lockstep with economic cycles. Technology moves relentlessly forward.
• In down times, consumers and businesses alike look to safe havens, familiar brands and dependable suppliers that focus on delivering consistent value. Companies that pull back fall back. Companies that move ahead, stay ahead.

Nothing is ever that simple. But it is not that complicated either.