The news focuses on the negative — and there’s a lot of it. What is perhaps being missed is that we are living in the buyers’ market of our lifetimes.
In all likelihood, nothing will ever be this cheap again.
That dreamhouse is selling for 10-25% less than it would have a couple of years ago. Mortgage rates are at a record low.
Autos dealers are selling cars for less than invoice. Gasoline is relatively cheap.
With an abundance of airline, hotel and resort deals available, it’s a great year to travel inexpensively. Condé Nast calls it “The world on sale.”
And none other than financial guru Warren Buffett says now’s the time to buy undervalued stock.
Do you know what else is on sale? Your competitions’ market share.
You steal it by aggressively marketing now.
“This is not the time to cut advertising,” says John Quelch in The Financial Times of London, February 2008, and Harvard Business, September 2008. “It is well documented that brands that increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and return on investment at lower cost than during good economic times.”
And because advertising revenues have declined sharply, ad rates have been cut to attract spending.
“Brands with deep pockets may be able to negotiate favourable advertising rates and lock them in for several years,” Quelch says.
For brands with long-term plans, now may be the best opportunity ever to catch competitors offguard and grow market share.
David Granger, in the March 2009 issue of Esquire, writes: “Gas is under two bucks [at least in America]. There’s never been a better time to buy a new car (half off! 0 percent!) or a new house (depressed prices 5 percent over thirty years = unprecedented opportunity). Tables are available in the vast majority of excellent restaurants, to eat reduced-price menus … Airports are way less crowded, there are empty seats on flights, and those flights land on time more often. There’s momentum afoot in the land to address the problems (infrastructure, education, health care, energy) we’ve ignored for the last eight years. All in all, it’s easier to live a more enjoyable life right now than at any time in recent memory … if we can just convince ourselves to go ahead and do so.”