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Joanna Seddon - Source: ONE News -
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The visiting head of global marketing company Millward Brown Optimor says companies who have continued to spend money on marketing during the recession are getting ahead of their peers.
Joanna Seddon says Millward Brown Optimor has tracked the sales and share prices of those companies who have continued to invest during the recession and those that have not.
It found that in the US, those companies who kept up their marketing budget managed to stem sales losses whereas sales plummeted for those who did not.
"I think when times are tough, brands help to keep the business up. There was some switching to private label, but the best brands have stuck to their guns (and) continued to spend," Seddon says.
She says many have used the downturn to get more marketing for less and create an advantage for their companies as circumstances change.
Seddon also says chief financial officers are coming around to the idea that marketing should be viewed as an investment, not a cost.
"They are...treating their brands as an asset that has to be put to work to generate money for the company like any other asset. When it's put like that, the finance guys start to get it," she says.
Seddon is in New Zealand as the keynote speaker at The Marketing
Forum in Auckland this week.
