Short term cuts or long term gain?

My buddies over at Breeze Marketing published a piece yesterday on the importance of keeping an eye on the long term marketing and business objectives, even when the short term pressures are piling up. How right they are.

Business realities frequently do mean that carefully laid plans do have to be revisited and amended when the world around us changes, but we need to be careful about cutting off our nose to spite our face. E-Marketer coincidentally published a piece today on short term marketing focus suggesting that lots of marketing organisations intend to re-ramp up their spending again 3-6 months before the current recession ends. The question remains though, just when might that be? Nobody managed to foresee the timing nor the speed with which the global economy crumbled last autumn.

There has been many many pieces of research done over the years that ratify the approach of under-dog or No 2 players in a market maintaining or increasing their marketing spend during hard times, seizing the opportunity to play on a more level playing field than they normally could, stealing a greater share of voice and often market share with it, advantages which they frequently go on to retain long after the crunch time has passed.

Food for thought. Let's think hard and spend smart.