In the earlier article 'Luxury consumption: will it really be affected by recession?' I provided my perspective on luxury consumption and effects of recession on it. I stated why there will be little affect of recession on luxury consumption. Furthermore, in a sequel to that article I wrote another article titled 'consumption tendencies in recession: early evidence' wherein the propositions I had forwarded were supported by consumers representing various countries and industries.
Respondents in my exploratory study confirmed the relatively lesser effect of recession on consumption pattern with regard to luxury goods. However, they also raised concerns as to companies should not be complacent about it and must take actions to offset the relative decrease in spending. In this article, I will focus on how and what actions companies should take to gain from the recession.
1. Spend on your brand
During a vibrant and growing economy consumers spend freely. Therefore, having an unclear brand position, while not optimum, is not as risky as during a recessionary period. In growth times, the brand’s weakness in the marketplace is less obvious, as consumers tend to be more forgiving and are not so price-conscious. However, when times get tough, consumer spending habits change dramatically. With negative news percolating from all media avenues the consumption fear sets in and they require much further motivation for spending. In recessionary times, consumers, not only spend less overall, but they become far more selective in how they spend. They gravitate away from brands that fail to provide a clear, meaningful, relevant and emotional engagement.
Conventional wisdom suggests that in times of recession it is better to tighten the belt and cut costs and most companies immediately cut their marketing and branding efforts. However, this is where the opportunity beacons. When others are cutting their spending and loosing the emotional engagement with customers, it will pay in the longer term to spend on the brand.
2. Spend on brand relevancy
The brand spend doesn't always mean monetary spend in every case. It is about generating a buzz around the brand and with the present day technology such efforts can be choreographed much easily than one can think. However, a word-of-caution for those ever so enthusiastic marketers. While creating and opening new communication avenues understand the limitations of it and the consumer engagement process. History of such communications is littered with companies overdoing it and in turn failing to become relevant. With luxury brands, relevance is an extremely important issue and therefore, one must move with caution. However, recession is the best time to build relevance and such relevance will stick for long-term.
3. Avoid the SALE mentality
The increasing wall-street driven short-term focus to outperform competitors everyday is another pitfall associated with most marketers. There is not a single firm in the world which can ever do that. Remember that proverb 'every dog has its day'. This is how simple it is. You cannot outperform the market everyday and every time. It catches up on you. In recession times short-term focused marketer go on sales promotion overdrive. This has a direct impact on the brand erosion and consumers get confused as to what the brand stands for.
Instead of sales promotion spend on engagement. Make your brand relevant. Cement the position of your brand in the customers' minds. Stop the sale mentality. However, simple and logical this may sound, most marketers who are continuously involved in operational thinking miss this and kill their beloved (mostly by the consumers) luxury brands.
STOP. THINK. ACT.
Managing Luxury Brands in Recession - To learn more about this author, visit Dr. Paurav Shukla's Website.
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Kim Castle
With nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation.
BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them?
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Dr. Paurav Shukla
(Visit Dr. Paurav's Website)
Dr. Paurav Shukla is a management thinker,
educator, researcher, consultant and an
entrepreneur based in the UK. He is a
senior lecturer at the Brighton Business
School, University of Brighton, UK. He
possesses wide range of industry and
academic experience from middle to senior
level in healthcare and media industries.
He has been delivering corporate training
and consulting assignments for
organizations across Europe, Asia and
North Africa. He has also been involved
with academic institutions and corporate
organizations including not for profit
organizations in the capacity of advisor
and board of directors.
He has been involved with various EU
funded research projects involving nations
across EU and Asia. He has written in the
area of customer expectations and
consumption experiences, international
marketing and SME management in
international level conferences and
journals. He has also been involved as a
guest editor for the Asia Pacific Journal
of Marketing and Logistics. He is on the
editorial and review boards of several
internationally refereed conferences and
journals.
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