The conventional wisdom is that marketing expenditures help brands steal share from their competitors. This assumes a fixed pie in which one competitor’s gain is another competitor’s loss. This also implies that products and brands are at least somewhat interchangeable in customers’ minds.
The economic downturn plaguing Western developed economies has been characterized as a once-in-75-years event, and policymakers have been criticized for mishandling economic policies because of a lack of experience with such a rare occurrence. But marketers have no such excuse. While this downturn is unusually severe, extended and difficult, it is an altogether familiar marketing puzzle. What marketers face is not unknown to them. It is a battle for share.
