The clever use of continuous data will help your brand behave like it’s a fire drill every day, especially if you want to prosper in a downturn.

Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart famously said, “I was asked what I thought about the recession. I thought about it and decided not to take part.”. He instinctively understood what every successful business leader knows — that booms and recessions (and 'recessionary environments') are an inevitable part of business life.

 The conventional wisdom goes that brands who invest in the tough times, reap rewards in the good times. Making the most of a broader, more affordable media inventory means that brands can stretch their dollar and therefore increase their reach and impact. You will read a lot of this coming into 2023. And you may have read a lot of it before because a lot of that verbage - whilst not wrong - is all too often repeated from the last time.

But why save this behaviour for a Recession. Why not use recession behaviour every day?

I want to talk about data and recession behaviour.

Bain & Company claims that Companies that concentrate on their core business, dramatically improve their odds of success in a downturn. Around 95% of companies that qualify as "sustained value creators"—those that maintained at least a 5.5% real growth rate in revenue and profit over ten years—are leaders in their core businesses. In fact, the average net profit margins of this group bounced back to 6.5% in 2009, only slightly below pre-recession levels in 2007-8.

However all is not lost for those who either haven’t invested (or haven’t been able to invest) or haven’t focussed. Or both. Because recession can also be a time of opportunity for those brave enough to put their hypotheses to the test.

Recession can be a time of opportunity for those brave enough to put their hypotheses to the test. Rather than their marketing to the sword.        

In an economic downturn, marketing leaders should also be asking the same questions you’d expect from their CFO. It is a chance to re-set and to recalibrate the way they do business. To search for new opportunities and to use the adverse winds of recession not only to protect their current position – which on a dollar basis, will cost less – but also to probe into other, new, fertile areas.

Brands that behave as though it’s a fire drill every day are those best prepared for when the house is actually on fire.         

Brands that behave as though it’s a fire drill every day are those best prepared for when the house is on fire. Big or small, the behaviours of David as opposed to Goliath will serve companies better and prepare them for the inevitable ebb and flow of the business cycle.

On the one hand, recession is a chance to evaluate every expenditure and ask whether it’s still needed. On the other, it’s a chance to use spare capacity, even inventory, and take aim at the market and the competition.

Netflix is a great example. In 2009, it wasn’t the behemoth it is today. In fact their way out of that particular slump was to launch new products and services. The company continued to work on partnerships with organizations like Xbox so people could stream through those devices.

It was these innovations that allowed the company to continue to grow during the economic downturn. In fact, they were increasing memberships and subscriptions during the 2008 recession while other companies were struggling to maintain revenue.

Citibank is another who invested for the tough times. They grew in the aftermath of economic distress while others didn't mainly because they worked on branding and offering quality services. Citigroup started supporting certain community services which helped with their brand story. Marketing played a large role in Citigroup's ability to grow after the 2008 recession.

In 2008, Lego thought it was a good idea to expand into a more global market. The company concentrated its efforts on building revenue in Europe and Asia while the U.S. faced economic distress.

By doing this, the company reached an all-time high profitability in the same recession. They expertly knew to expand to global markets when its main market was facing an economic downturn.

But it's not just entertainment, toys and banks that prosper in the down times, as you might expect. There will always be an opportunity to make hay in a recession, you just have to find it. Like Starbucks, Amazon, Airbnb and many others, in the words of Derek Trotter, Fortune favours the Brave.

Bravery is rare in an incremental world. And yet bravery is where the opportunity lies.        

But bravery is rare in an incremental world. And yet bravery is where the opportunity lies.

ADNA was founded in the last major downturn in 2020 on the belief that Marketers were worn out with a process that started with research from one supplier, relied on the correct analysis of that research (usually delegated to a junior member of the team) wrote a brief for an agency, ask procurement to put out an RFI, sift through the responses and then find 4 or 5 agencies willing to take the RFP, brief them and then wait the 2-3 weeks for a response.

Total time to date there would be around 4-6 months at best. By which time the opportunity has come and gone. And it can cost more to catch up. Precious marketing dollars wasted.

ADNA believes that speed and creativity in all its forms, need no longer compete.        

We believe that speed and creativity in all its forms, need no longer compete.

Companies that combine and integrate data into their entire process are ones that move quicker and pack a bigger punch on delivery. Like any agile military unit, the opportunity to move heavy machinery into place fast can be devastating to an unsuspecting enemy.

The ‘data effect’ helps marketers to be swift and agile on their feet, with no loss of momentum in other areas. 

Audience data is easy to find. People to run quant studies and immediately analyse the outputs and move fast to showing creative territory outcomes less so.

Like any agile military unit, the opportunity to move heavy machinery into place fast can be devastating to an unsuspecting enemy.        

With economic uncertainty in the air, the next recession will once again put brands to the test and may also change the make up of the consumer market. The challenge for every brand is how to go in fighting and come out a winner.

Whether it’s focusing on customers and community building, innovating new products that will stand the test of time, or adapting products to the consumer mood, the only way to decide which decision or combination of decisions are right for a successful future are those that are not only informed by quality, fresh data, but data that is analysed at the speed of the consumer discussion and then applied decisively and strategically.