Marketing in der Rezession

Summary

Changes in consumer behaviour, caused by recession, make restructuring and adjustment of companies to a must. Talking about buying habits we cannot simply talk about holding back non-urgent purchases, their influence has to be subdivided in different buying tendencies in durable and in nondurable consumer goods. Besides such general settings the paper presents possible basic strategies to be taken into account.

The author suggests detailed activities in all four basic elements of marketing. As an activity in product-policy especially secondary brand name policy, time- and cost-efficient modifications of existing products and the addition of complementary products should be favoured instead of costly new product development. With the risk of price reductions in mind, the granting of discounts also needs a careful look at. Instruments as sponsoring or CI-policy have more the quality of prophylactic instruments than real instant reaction qualities.

The implementation of “lean”-concepts, i. e. lean marketing management, makes it possible through a quick and flexible reaction to take action in present chances and to avoid losses timely. An implementation of concepts with such a long-term/strategic significance is recommended far before a recession has reached its climax.