How to Approach Marketing during an Economic Downturn
With a slew of tariffs proposed in the US, subsequent counter-tariffs under consideration, and consumers and corporations both uneasy about the future of the economy, it’s a good time to revisit resources on marketing during an economic downturn. While it’s unclear whether the U.S. will indeed plunge into a recession, many consumers are pulling back on spending. Additionally, more than half of chief financial officers surveyed by CNBC are expecting a recession in the second half of 2025, up from 7% at the end of 2024.
How can brands ensure that they get noticed and chosen when consumers are ready to buy? How can marketers reduce price sensitivity when wallets are already tight? How can they drive exponential growth for shareholders and get ahead of the competition?
We’re outlining six strategies to consider when economic uncertainty is at an all-time-high.
Don’t Go Dark, Keep Marketing’s Lights On
In 2022, Mark Ritson joined our webinar exploring marketing during a recession. One of the key points raised is the importance of thinking beyond an economic downturn. How brands behave during these periods influences how they will emerge on the other side.
Maintaining investment on share of voice gives you an advantage during a recession, especially if competitors are pulling back. But because long-term, consistent communications are the most effective kind for brand growth, the real impact of maintaining your investment in marketing is revealed after the crisis is over.
Brands that ‘go dark’ – switching off marketing during periods of uncertainty – have to build up mental availability again when the recovery comes. By then, the brands that have continued to invest in advertising have had a chance to prime consumers and position themselves as a good choice for when they’re ready to buy.
For all of the key takeaways, see the full recap here.
Don’t Be Dull, Entertain for Commercial Gain
The more people feel, the more they buy. Yet the most common response to advertising is nothing, a lack of any feeling.
In The Extraordinary Cost of Dull, Adam Morgan, Peter Field and System1’s Jon Evans explore the alarming crisis of dullness. Most advertising doesn’t elicit any emotional response in consumers – it fails to entertain.
And it’s costing businesses a lot of money, as boring advertising doesn’t break through, it doesn’t hold attention and it certainly doesn’t push consumers towards a purchase. By overcoming ‘the four horsemen of the dullocalypse,’ brands can make emotionally engaging work that builds their brand over the long term while also supporting short-term activation.
During difficult periods, like economic downturns, some brands may want to pull back on bold, riskier marketing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw many companies take on a softer approach, a ‘we’re here for you’ attitude, but the result was a lack of humor and entertainment. People don’t want to be reminded of the stressors of daily life – they want to laugh and smile and be surprised by advertising.
Whatever you do, don’t be dull. The biggest risk is actually not being brave enough to take one. Of the recent Super Bowl commercials, Pfizer’s had the least amount of neutrality at 18%, well below the national average. The emotional story of a young boy’s cancer journey resulted in a mix of emotions from viewers, including Happiness, Sadness and Surprise.
Let your Best Ads Wear In
Do consumers tire of advertising as quickly as the marketers who are deeply embedded in these campaigns? A few years ago, we set out to explore whether ads wear out. Good news for marketing budgets, perhaps bad news for those who tire of their own work quickly.
Our research found little evidence of ads wearing out.
Our first analysis looked at the Star Rating of 50,000 ads. Some ads were tested very soon after they launched, and others were tested long after their initial air date (going back up to 7,000 days). If the theory of wear out was true, older ads would perform worse when tested, as audiences would be more familiar with and tired of them.
The baseline average score – for ads tested within 50 days of initial airdate – was 2.2-Stars. Every other age segment we looked at received a similar score – between 2.0 Stars and 2.4 Stars.
But what if brands are accurately detecting which ads are wearing out with viewers, and removing them from air? They wouldn’t appear in our analysis. Perhaps only effective ads are given the chance to get old.
Our next analysis tested 50 UK ads and 50 US ads shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic. Then we tested them during the first lockdown in March 2020. The third round of testing occurred in January 2021 when COVID had a resurgence and the final testing took place in October 2022 when recession fears were growing.
Despite the remarkable times, ad testing scores hardly change over these nearly two years. If wear out was an issue, ads would see a steady decrease in Star Rating as time progresses for both high- and low-scoring ads. We can confidently say that ineffective ads (those in the 1-Star and 2-Star range) don’t get better the longer they run. We did find that better performing ads can see their ratings increase over time, suggesting that good ads can become even more effective as they wear in.
If marketing budgets are feeling the squeeze, dig back into the archives to find your best performing work. Save on production costs and keep running creative that has already been developed and proven effective for your brand. Not
Be Consistent to Benefit from Compounding Effects
Brands spend years building up mental availability through the use of distinctive assets like characters, logos, sonic devices and more. And yet, this can all be dismantled when a new agency comes into play with a new creative strategy or when a new CMO is appointed and needs to quickly prove themselves.
In fact, the best way to drive brand and business effects is to commit to consistency. Our research, The Magic of Compound Creativity, marries System1’s Test Your Ad data with the IPA Effectiveness Databank. We found that the most consistent brands leverage three building blocks: creative foundations (i.e., consistent positioning, creative idea tenure and agency tenure); culture of consistency (e.g., creative wear in, cross channel consistency, commitment to showmanship, reusing creative assets); and consistent execution (e.g., consistent brand assets, consistent tone of voice, fluent device tenure, brand slogan commitment, hired device tenure, soundtrack commitment).
Consistency leads to higher-quality creative that has more power to drive short- and long-term growth. And these effects compound over time, with the most consistent brands experiencing a higher growth rate after 5 years than less consistent brands.
Once you’ve identified the most effective creative positioning, stay the course with your creative and distinctive assets so that consumers can easily recognize you. Familiarity breeds contentment and consistency is the key to familiarity.
Ensure Brand and Performance are Working in Sync
Many organizations today still struggle to prove the value of brand-building advertising. Especially during difficult times, marketers are tasked with generating revenue now. Some companies are even structured in such a way that performance marketing teams are siloed from the broader work that is meant to build the brand.
But the right advertising can do both – set the brand up for long-term success while also driving interest now. In The Multiplier Effect, a joint report from WARC, System1, BERA.ai, Prophet and Analytic Partners, we used our Test Your Ad findings to demonstrate that ads that do the long really well (scoring high on our Star Rating metric) often also accomplish the short (scoring high on our Spike Rating metric). Ads that aim solely for short-term activation, focusing on promotions and functional product features, very rarely support long-term brand building.
During periods of economic uncertainty, there are fewer people in the market for your brand. That’s why you need to use showmanship advertising that entertains to get your brand known and liked by the 95% who aren’t yet in market. This opens their minds up to the possibility of your brand, so that salesmanship advertising can later lock things down to a certainty when they’re ready to buy. Orlando Wood, Chief Innovation Officer at System1, and Sir John Hegarty, explored the importance of both equity advertising and performance advertising, in our recent webinar.
Leverage Testing to Maximize Profitable Growth
Rather than launching a campaign and hoping it resonates, marketers can achieve certainty by leveraging pre-testing. Testing creative early and often can help drive higher ROI. This is always a win, but especially so during periods when marketing budgets may be tighter.
Ad testing that helps predict the commercial impact of creative, like System1’s Test Your Ad platform, gives marketers insights into which work will best support the brand in the long term while also delivering results in the short term. You can even use ad testing to dive into your archives and identify the top-performing work you’ve already created and further improve it to keep driving long-term growth.
Explore our case studies to understand how brands are using System1’s testing solutions to Create with Confidence. Plus, don’t miss the Uncensored CMO podcast episode featuring Pfizer CMO Susan Rienow showcasing how System1 supported its Super Bowl campaign.
Create with Confidence
In addition to predicting creative’s potential, ad testing also enables marketers to identify areas where ads can be further finetuned to drive a greater emotional response in consumers, thereby advancing profit gain and market share gain.
Additionally, System1’s Test Your Ad Premium database of more than 125,000 ads and rankings by category can be used to benchmark results against competitors.