The Valuable Lessons of 2009

I sat down to write a New Year’s Eve blog entry a week ago. It was a pretty emotional tirade. “Good riddance to 2009!—a miserable year for business, especially for those of us in marketing and advertising”, the first sentence stated.

I even had the national advertising industry statistics to prove my point:
• Ad spending down 12.9% (sharpest drop since the Great Depression)
• Ad agency revenue down 9.7%
• Ad agency staffing down 14% (76,300 jobs lost since November 2007)
• Media employment down 12.7% (newspapers and TV hardest hit)

The list of dismal statistics went on and on. Plenty of bad news to blame on 2009.

But then I realized I was coming off as a real whiner and that it may be a good idea to let that blog entry cure for a day or so before posting it for the entire world to see.

“Life is not fair—or easy”, I reminded myself. (My daughters always rolled their eyes and sighed after hearing that hundreds of times as they grew up). So I decided to take another try at recapping the year by asking myself this question: What did we learn from the Great Recession of 2009?

Here then, is a more positive, reflective and mature summary of valuable lessons our agency learned during the greatest economic recession this country has experienced since the 1930s.

Bad News Feeds Upon Itself
Looking back to those dark months of the first quarter, the news media was constantly “one-upping” each other with bad economic news. “You think THAT’S bad, try THIS!”, which only created more uncertainty.

Uncertainty Created Fear
Looking back, it wasn’t as bad as it seemed at the time. It was the uncertainty—the “What’s next?” that created fear and doubt. Fear and doubt are rarely good. As a result, projects and decisions were put on hold, waiting for clearer indications before moving ahead. This meant lost momentum for everyone.

Do More with Less
Clients were forced to either suspend their marketing efforts (which further reduced sales) or find ways to do more with less. I’m glad to say we helped several clients do just that. “More with Less” has become the new norm, and we’re a better agency for finding ways to be more efficient.

Back to Basics
The past year was a reality check for everyone. Time and again we saw ourselves talking about fundamental blocking and tackling. Product attributes? Pricing? Competitive set? Sales? Distribution? Target audience? All aspects of a client’s marketing program were scrutinized. Again, I think we’re a stronger, smarter agency for experiencing this downturn with our clients.

Target Carefully to Minimize Waste
Our media folks went to bat for our clients in several ways. First, we really, really focused on the target audience for each of our clients. Then we challenged our media partners to clearly demonstrate their reach of that target. “Close enough” wasn’t good enough. Then we negotiated the best rates and positions possible to give our clients a competitive advantage. We clearly saw results from this effort.

Confidence and Optimism Are Powerful Forces
By May, we started to see glimmers of hope. Doing nothing wasn’t working so well, and clients began, very cautiously, approving projects previously on hold that had been re-estimated and re-presented. And slowly, but surely, confidence and optimism began to replace fear and doubt. It’s been a slow and long healing process, but I have to say I’m optimistic that 2010 will be a better year for our industry, for our clients and for our agency. I realize this economy is not out of the woods yet, and there are still many talented and experienced people looking for jobs. But confidence and optimism sure feel better than fear and doubt.

So those are the valuable lessons of 2009. (By the way, I’m glad I put that “whiner blog” on hold for a few days.)

Back “On the Road” this week to the Region III NAMA Awards in Minneapolis, Thursday, January 14. Hope to see you there!