AD theme in recession...

US and probably most countries in the world is going through a tremendous change during these recession times, what used to be unique product based positioning & marketing... is moving towards advertising on "price" - price based competition is the one of the first consideration for advertisements, below are some examples of TV Ads...

• Subway - $5.00 footlong sandwitches
• Hyundai - Offering $1.49 /gallon gas for the entire year
• KFC - $5.00 for chicken, side & drink
• GM is becoming "green" from the traditional blue.. to give a new message
  
• Chillis - $20.00 3 course menu for two people
• Walmart - continues to give the message of everyday low prices
  

and every street has at least one store in NY, has one of the following boards...

• going out of business
• everything is 80% off
• buy 1 get 1 free

How does the world of advertising change in these recession times?
First thing that happens in time of recession for advertising is cut in budgets & change of positioning & message for the product to something more valuable, less price, better over the competition etc,

How do you innovate in advertising your product?
It should be back to basics...

a. re-think the competition for the product, as because of new macro-economic conditions the marketplace might have changed, could be competing with a #6 company in the market

b. understand the new value of your product in the recession, new economic conditions might mean different to your consumers...

c. change your advertising strategy, start with a clean slate in the communicating the message to the consumers

the list can keep going to innovate, position and marketing of the product.

-Bhaskara

Is new product innovation recession proof?

Probably most written topic, after hearing so much of negative / bad news on paper in recent few weeks... its my turn to put this on the blog.

No, it is not - recession is going to hit the innovation to certain extent, the probability of raising big money for extensive research & development will be tough in this market...new companies would have to manage with frugal funding on engineering & research, hard to think innovative - on limited budget, will be forced to cut corners or make quick decisions.

Who will success in such recession market?
People / companies who build in-house or partnerships for research based on long term innovation strategy, obviously people would have to work at less / no pay for months to build the product & hope to succeed when market bounces back, then comes the pay day!

Good luck in sailing through tough times.

-Bhaskara