About This Webinar
This eStore Academy session brings together insights from LinkedIn's B2B Institute and innovation expert Monica to challenge conventional recession thinking. With COVID-19 creating unprecedented economic uncertainty, this webinar provides data-driven evidence for why maintaining brand investment and continuing innovation during tough times creates sustainable competitive advantages.
As businesses worldwide face budget pressures and economic headwinds, understanding the historical patterns of recession winners becomes critical for strategic decision-making.
Key Insights
The All-Weather Marketing Strategy
LinkedIn's research with effectiveness expert Peter Field reveals the recession paradox:
Historical Evidence: Kellogg's transformed from second-tier player to industry leader during the 1920s recession by increasing marketing investment whilst competitor Post cut spending. This pattern repeats across every major recession since.
Quantified Impact: Brands that increased advertising investment during the 2008 recession achieved 4.5 times more market share growth than those that cut spending.
Recovery Advantage: The benefits of recession marketing extend decades beyond the crisis. As Peter Field notes: "Brand advertising is not about profiting in recession, it's about capitalising in recovery."
The Three Pillars of Recession Marketing
Strategy: Don't cut advertising budgets. Instead, increase investment when competitors retreat to gain disproportionate share of voice and prepare for recovery. Markets offer unprecedented buying opportunities when advertising costs drop significantly.
Creative: Resist the urge to create new campaigns. Research with System One shows familiar creative performs better during uncertainty. Successful themes include:
- Familiar characters and scenarios
- Nostalgia and human connections
- Local solidarity and community focus
- Easy-to-understand messaging that doesn't require mental effort
Media: Focus on quality over quantity with three criteria:
- Quality reach: First-party data and verified audiences (80% of third-party data proves inaccurate)
- Quality attention: Prominent placement, low clutter, long viewing duration
- Quality context: Reputable channels that eliminate ad fraud risk
Innovation Beyond New Products
Innovation doesn't require massive capital investment or new product launches:
Process Innovation: A small restaurant survived COVID by innovating across eight dimensions - menu extensions, geography expansion, new customer segments, delivery introduction, supply chain changes, and customer service enhancement - with minimal investment.
Employee-Driven Innovation: Leverage frontline insights, remove hierarchical constraints, establish regular brainstorming processes, and create innovation-friendly culture.
Design Thinking Framework: Five-step process (empathise, define, ideate, prototype, test) enables innovation without upfront investment, focusing on understanding problems before building solutions.
E-commerce Innovation Leaders
Current e-commerce innovation trends show clear winners:
Artificial Intelligence: Leading adoption in visual search, personalisation, and automated customer service. Example: Neiman Marcus's "Snap, Find, Shop" feature enabling photo-based product discovery.
Winner Analysis: Lululemon achieved fastest brand value growth by combining product innovation (high-tech fabrics), service innovation (online training, virtual styling), and digital experience enhancement.
Emerging Opportunities: AI, augmented reality, voice commerce, and personalisation represent high-ROI, high-impact innovation areas requiring strategic rather than massive financial investment.
Essential Takeaways
- Historical Advantage: Every major recession creates permanent market share shifts favouring brands that maintain investment over those that retreat
- ESOV Rules: Extra Share of Voice (advertising spend above market share) remains the most reliable growth driver, especially when competitors reduce spending
- Creative Consistency: Familiar, nostalgic creative outperforms new campaigns during uncertain times - focus on brand assets that have historically resonated
- Quality Media Focus: Concentrate spending on verified audiences, high-attention placements, and reputable contexts rather than chasing cheap, low-quality inventory
- Innovation Mindset: Innovation is a daily practice of solving customer problems, not just new product development requiring massive investment
- Design Thinking: Systematic problem-solving approach enables innovation with minimal upfront costs by understanding before building
The brands that emerge stronger from economic downturns are those that recognise crisis as opportunity - gaining market share when competitors retreat, building deeper customer relationships when attention is focused, and innovating solutions when customer needs evolve rapidly.
Speakers
Jennifer Shaw-Sweet
B2B Institute @LinkedIn
Monika Stezewska-Kruk
Innovation Advisor
Marc Baker
Founder, Tyde
