The article, obviously using Indian market figures, does raise the question 'What should Marketeers do in a 'recession'?'.
The article goes someway to answer the question, advising protection of brand - especially long term protection, take the short term hit on profits, and offer the customer more of your product at a discounted price (500 grms intead of 300 grms). Depending on the particular market these are good points to make. However a subsidiary question asked as to where to cut costs is left generally unanswered by the article, and unfortunately in the commercial world cutting costs in a recession of indeterminate length is a major factor in survival for many businesses.
The article concluds that print and television media are good sources of advertising (and marketing) and yet totally ignors online advertising and marketing. This is a shame, as generally online advertising and marketing can be so much more cost effective and produce a greater ROI. This has been shown by the constant rise in advertising share of online marketing spend over recent years compared with drops in televison marketing and at best stagnation in print marketing spheres.
As already acknowledged this article was writen for the Indian market, a market where the number of consumers having access to online facilities is not as great (in percentage terms) as many western markets and therefore this could be the reason for ignoring this medium in the article. However, with online marketing and advertising the costs are generally much lower, campaigns can be readily tweaked much easier, and ROI is far better than the two mediums suggested. Indeed it could be argued that changing marketing/advertising medium formats to an online based campaign could reduce the required budget whilst maintaining market share and product profitability.
