Page 147 - Accelerating out of the Great Recession

ACCELERATING OUT OF THE GREAT RECESSION

and the few firms that continue to advertise aggressively capture
a larger share of voice at relatively favorable rates.
This increased prominence at relatively low cost can become
a powerful tool, as P&G found during the Great Depression.
Although the consumer goods industry had suffered less than
other industries during that time, companies were still aggres-
sively cutting back their advertising budgets. Seeing an oppor-
tunity to reach its core customers (then referred to as “house-
wives”) by advertising on radio, the company launched the first
daytime serial radio program in 1933. P&G advertised its core
product—soap—on these programs. They soon became known
as “soap operas.”
So successful was the first program that P&G was encour-
aged to launch more, and by the end of the 1930s, P&G had
established itself as one of the biggest advertisers on radio.
Between 1935 and 1937, P&G doubled its spending on radio
advertising and then doubled it again from 1937 to 1939.
Meanwhile, overall spending on marketing in the United States
remained nearly flat.
It is not just the big companies that can exploit the benefits
of advertising during a downturn in order to build visibility and
brand recognition more cheaply than during an upturn. As in
the Great Depression, today’s environment creates an especially
valuable opportunity for innovative companies whose business
model is geared toward the lower end of the market. Part of
Chrysler’s success, for example, can be attributed to the heavy
publicity and marketing tactics it employed in the early 1930s
to popularize the new Plymouth.
In 1931, Chrysler launched a reengineered Plymouth model
with a unique new engine-mounting system that eliminated a
vibration and noise design problem. This new feature was

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