December is often a time of year when things quiet down for marketers (except for the spike in agency parties). But this year it feels dominated by a whole lot of scenario brainstorming and re-planning. The common theme is how to do “more with less”.
I started kicking around cartoon ideas around “more with less” and the metaphor of a drought came to mind. While some brands with deep pockets will use this time to maintain spending and grow faster than less-funded competitors, most brands are facing budget cuts like they’ve never seen before.
In a drought, it’s a good time to re-evaluate entirely what you’re doing. The answer isn’t to just use less water on the same old thing, it’s to try things that don’t take a lot of water.
David Taylor and David Nichols published some handy tips on recession-proof branding recently. Also, Adam Morgan just re-released his classic book, Eating the Big Fish, which shows there’s a lot you can learn from challenger brands in a recession.
David Taylor(from Where'sTheSausage) says
December 9, 2008 at 8:30 amTom,
A real honour to have a Tom Fishburne cartoon inspired by our work! As always, your genius has illustrated a concept, in this case “recession-proof branding”, in a single big picture.
David, from brandgymblog.com
Julie Murray says
June 4, 2010 at 10:47 am18 months later, and this is still as relevant as ever! Thanks for inspiring us through words, images, and chuckles to keep up the good fight and find new, better ways to build our brands.