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Please stop calling it “Recession Marketing”

January 26th, 2009 Posted in Rants

I’ve been reading and hearing a lot of discussion about how this social stuff (social media, community building, customer collaboration) is a magic bullet for these troubling economic times. The term “Recession Marketing” is being thrown pretty willy nilly.

(Did I just use the term “willy nilly”?? Oh my.)

These times aren’t about simply changing the style of our marketing. A tough economy isn’t a time for a new marketing tactic. Marketplace woes aren’t a reason to see more of your marketing mix shifted to “social”.

No, the recession is time for all of us to look at our companies, clients, and customers and ask if we’re truly serving their needs. It’s time to ask if we’re giving an exceptional customer experience. It’s time to listen to customer feedback in order to understand whether we’re delivering on the brand promise.

We’re not in a period of “Recession Marketing”. We’re faced with an opportunity to improve customer experience and thus strength our (and our client’s) businesses. We need better products, better and different marketing tactics, and better communication with customers. These things aren’t specific to a recession, we just tend to forget them (or at least undervalue them) until market conditions force us to focus again.

Who’s going to join me in striking “Recession Marketing” from our collective vocabulary before it’s too late?

If you’re interested, join the Facebook group to make your voice heard in this Epic Struggle.


  • This is a great observation. Everyone is getting back to basics. But why do we forget the basics when we are flush with cash. The other problem is they are looking for reach and returns on social networking and trying to measure it in ways they measure advertising reach, etc... You have to be committed, engaged in give and take, and authentic to make any progress in the social mediums. You can't just toss money at it. Everyone is looking for a quick fix, and there is no magic answer.
  • Hi Jake -

    I agree with both you and Jim...and from my perspective both companies that are looking to social media as their cost savior and those that are laying off their social media people are short sighted. You point is a bigger one which is that companies should be using this time to re-evaluate how they serve their customer and invest (if they can) in new processes and programs that will pay off huge dividends when the economy picks up.

    I unfortunately do not see that many companies that have been able to hold on to their vision instead of bowing to shorter term pressures - both due to leadership and pure economic pressures. Tough times.
  • Hi Jake - I'm on board with not calling it "recession marketing", but I'm having a hard time reconciling the premise that companies are turning to social media as the "go to marketing strategy" during troubled times. From what I'm seeing/reading, social media practitioners are under fire and stand a good chance to not survive the next round of layoffs. This post from Benn Rosales captures my sentiment.

    http://www.nmlab.com/blog/social-media-are-you-...

    My sense is that companies that recognize the time it takes to build an effective social marketing presence and invest now will be best positioned to grow once we emerge from the recession. Companies that hide under a shell will find themselves playing catch-up for quite some time. What do you think?

    Jim | @jstorerj

    ps... I gasped in horror the other day when I used the phrases "kids these days."
  • Here here! From what I've seen, "recession marketing" is code for being cheap by doing everything online--naturally, without regard to strategy:

    "You mean people DON'T want to receive 50 e-cards from us this week?"
    "No, they don't."
    "But we're being 'green and reducing paper usage!"
    "..."
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