Building Your Brand During a Downturn

Savvy marketers will use an economic downturn as a means of improving client relationships

When the market turns south, hiding is not the answer. You still have a product or service to bring to market. Continuing to support your company's brand is imperative to dispelling any potential fears of your customers or investors. In fact, instilling confidence in your stability is especially important in a struggling economy, when your own customers are re-evaluating their budgets and their spending even with their most valued suppliers.

Unfortunately during a slowdown, the marketing budget is often the first to get slashed. Companies become much more focused on managing costs than managing market share. However, experience has shown that momentum lost when brand support is cut just leads to a larger investment down the road to rebuild the awareness of the brand. Most experts agree that drastic slashes in marketing communications are poor short-term decisions. In fact, as the economic conditions continue, investors start putting pressure on companies to do the right thing for the long term.

The new challenge then becomes how to effectively communicate the benefits of your product or service within your reduced means. One strategy is to take advantage of current market conditions and the reduced cost of media placements. With less demand for ad space and air time, companies can take advantage of lower rates and more desired positioning. Some marketers are using this strategy wisely to boost their brand during this period of reduced competition. They don't have to spend as much for competitive visibility. Then, of course, it is imperative to maximize efficiencies wherever possible.

One method of maximizing brand awareness, and controlling costs, is to create a collateral system. The system is a tangible manifestation of a business that can be applied to all aspects of print, interactive and environmental communication. It is developed as a result of a thorough analysis of a company's communication objectives, its brand positioning and its competition. The design system eliminates inefficiencies in creative and production fees, and extends the branding process throughout everything you do.

Without a collateral system, each communication project, whether it is an ad, a special promotion, sales brochure or website, becomes a significant investment in communication design. As a business owner, you can't afford to reinvent the wheel with each project and waste valuable time and money. You also don't want a corporate image that is disjointed and confusing. Each piece needs to communicate a consistent message about your company so that the momentum and awareness of each piece carries the next one a little bit further.

One of the benefits of a collateral system is that it streamlines the production process. Established templates and guidelines make creating a new project (brochure, website, technical paper) a simple process for anyone within the company to manage, while ensuring that each piece conforms to the branding standards. With every new brochure or sell sheet, people have contact with a strong, consistent brand. The system and accompanying resource materials, used by Group C Design for example, provide clear and unified guidelines that enable everyone to project the distinctive message of the corporate brand to customers, shareholders, partners and the world.

The added value of this system is the accompanying management tools (like budget and scheduling worksheets) that make successfully managing the process easy. With the assistance of this system you should be able to forecast your communication activities over an extended period of time, thus making the balancing act of managing costs and managing communications a realistic goal.

The downturn in the economy provides uncertainty for some companies, opportunity for others. Smart marketers will seize it as a means to improve relationships with their customers and enhance the brand building process.

Authored by: Ria Sharon, creative director of Group C Design, a marketing communications firm that serves as a business's creative partner to help them build brands through innovative visual designs. Republished by permission of the St. Louis Small Business Monthly, The Source for Business Owners; September 2001