What recession?

Faced with a daily dose of financial gloom and despondency served up by the news media, it comes as something of a relief to see evidence of very strong green shoots of success. But this time they are appearing from many directions in manufacturing industries in the UK and Europe. 

In marketing land, we were always taught to ‘read the runes’ or ‘feel the seaweed’ to judge trends from empirical experience as well as official metrics and that in times of recession marketing was ‘the first in to it and the first out’ as companies hurriedly cut back on spending when times were hard and started to invest again as a recession bottomed out. How true. Yes, we can be informed by international pundits and financial journalists that things are looking bleak and worse, with cuts and changes that will affect everyone adversely, but let’s be positive when we can. 

In the last few months, we’ve seen some real changes in the entertainment technology and other engineering industries. There was a common theme at PLASA in London this September when chatting with old friends who were manufacturers: plenty of orders, too few components. One old mate was absent from the show as he dashed around the globe looking for bits to keep his production lines going in the UK. The same theme has been repeated to us many times from manufacturers in industries ranging from control desks to table tennis bats. 

Now there may be plenty of readers who will disagree as their personal experience doesn’t reflect this view, but that is not the point of this blog. The point is that as marketing consultants Technical Marketing Ltd has been contacted repeatedly in recent months not just to ‘do a press release’ or ‘update a website’ or ‘sort out an advert’ but to look at business opportunities, come up with ideas on how to structure the company and products for the future, how to integrate business goals with a marketing plan and how to execute it. Medium term thinking, not short term. Is this the ‘first in, first out’ recession syndrome at work? 

Maybe the seaweed is looking healthy again. Let’s all hope so.