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Marketing in a recession: retrench or invest?

The world is emerging from a deep economic recession. Despite extensive research indicating that reducing marketing efforts exacerbates the negative effects of recession, many firms have retrenched spending in this area. This paper uses a modified meta-analysis to review and evaluate extant research on marketing spending during recessions. The findings confirm that marketing can be significantly more important to the firm during a recession than at any other time. The paper argues that marketing budgets are cut because of a short-term focus by top management and the absence of a market orientation. The evidence also confirms that firms who curtail their marketing expenditure are likely to jeopardise future sales and profits. Ultimately, recession offers a rare opportunity for proactive firms to improve their competitive advantage through increased marketing efforts, as long as these are well considered and carefully tailored.