David Ratajczak, Mario Simon, Leonardo Fascione, Emily Kruger, Chris Murphy, Alex Almeida

Reducing investments in brand marketing during downturns backfires in many ways. Such budget cuts are sound bites that may play well on earnings calls, but their effectiveness is dubious at best—and destructive at worst. CMOs and CFOs should instead see times of economic uncertainty as a marketing and sales opportunity to double down on the right customers, gain share, enhance the value of their customer … [ Read more ]

Don’t Cut Your Brand-Marketing Budget. Rethink It.

Brand marketing is an easy target when CMOs face pressure to shrink budgets in times of uncertainty. CMOs often struggle to resist such cuts because most companies lack an unequivocal answer to this long-lingering question: Can brand-marketing spending be dialed down as needed to shore up financials, or is it an essential, always-on investment that must be safeguarded to avoid devastating long-term impacts on the … [ Read more ]