BINGEING IN BAD TIMES

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The downfall of global financial stalwarts like Lehman and Morgan Stanley have also unleashed a somewhat similar story for India’s darling ICICI (with malicious rumors playing their own part in the saga). Correspondingly, consumer confidence has also taken a dip (albeit slight!). Given the unfolding situation, analysts expect a tightening in the corporate spend for at least two quarters. An ICICI official, on conditions of anonymity, told this magazine that “In order to maintain the bottom line, it is prudent for the corporate (ICICI) to cut their expenses. Hence, cost cuts are happening through various alternatives and ad expense is a part of those alternatives.”

As a matter of fact, while it is prudent to curtail costs, corporate should look at the returns of ad spends in terms of top line and compare it to the costs of business losses if the marketing spends were not done to arrive at an alignment. Well there are few who do not buy this logic, for them it is not merely revenue but legacy which matters. A Coke spokesperson told 4Ps B&M, “In Coca-Cola we don’t exactly design every ad keeping in mind how much revenue it will generate as our policy is to sustain the legacy of the brand by promoting it through ads. So the exact ad expenditure is not necessarily directly linked to revenue.”

His words ring true, specially given the fact that even global experts have now started recommending more advertising during recession time, so that the brand makes the most of it when the economy recovers. For now, the only guys who seem to be in the safe zone are the (evergreen?) FMCG and (sunrise!) telecom sectors. As opposed to last year, FMCG major HUL increased its ad spend by 11.78% and correspondingly its sales improved by 13.24%. Similarly Dabur India improved its sales by 29.64% after increasing ad spends by 25.55%. Telecom major Bharti leads the list of the telecom players which increased its ad expenses by 40% and witnessed a 44% growth in its sales figure.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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