Slowly but surely we hope for good news, as undoubted tougher times lay ahead with less resource and smaller margins. One principle which has always fared well in tougher times in marketing is the Pareto principle or the more widely used 80-20 rule, for brands this = laser targeting your best customer/prospects, as a dear old friend would say “Better to fish where the fishes are and not where they aren’t”. Time to pull out all the CRM hand books – focus on the facts and not syndicated research – who better to guide you in such efforts than those trusted sources in your wallet and the companies who send your monthly statements and who know the real day to day movements and financial clout of the remaining credit worthy customers in this difficult economic climate…take some time…. think about it…you know it really makes sense!

Something has to give…… As consumers are in the market for bargain hunting only, almost with vulture type instincts (Just look at Woolies) and there is still a few more brands to fall off the trading ladder before the end of the year. A number of brands through desperation  are falling into that space of being widely branded as the discount brand. What happens when these brands need to decrease their heavily promoted discounts and get out of the red and back into the black?

Is it all to late? Or are we about to enter a 24 month spell of coupons and discount vouchers?

Previous recession case studies reveal that the brands who were most aggressive and had a great value story to tell, won significant market share and in the long term came out quids in, building brand equity along the way.

Now the world has gone back to basics with a twist, today’s consumers are information savvy and their purchase criteria are primarily built on the foundation of value, trust, innovation and life improvement.

There were many different views and opinions on this, however the common denominator was brands and their products should definitely be doing more to enrich the lives of their customers experience of the brand, at both point of sale and after purchase. Thus offering the dynamic of leveraging the brand to offer customers instant gratification whilst simultaneously helping their customers to get more from of life.