Clearly, this deep global recession has taken its toll on marketing departments and market research and competitive intelligence budgets. Senior executives, strategic planning and marketing departments face the following challenge of how to continue the following initiatives with a reduced research budget:
If you have recently searched for “Kenya safari,” “gold jewelery,” or “insurance price comparison” lately, you are responsible. Responsible, that is, for an article published last week in the Financial Times that claims how these search terms and others like them “suggest that consumer confidence is perking up.” According to the FT, search query patterns suggest that “consumer sentiment in the UK is up 6 per cent since the beginning of the year.”
As marketing budgets shrink and tip in favor of value messaging and cost incentives rather than brand-building, the absence of the latter in favor of the former is acutely dangerous.
Brands have adopted a variety of tactics in response to changing consumer attitudes and behaviors.
What do guns, burglar alarms and condoms have in common? Their sales all boomed in 2009, with condom sales jumping 22 per cent over the same period in 2008. But why?
