Question by Dimitris Mavros of PRC GROUP Athens: Falling volumes and budget cuts. What is the role of marketing during a recession?
Nathaniel Hansen, CEO, The Socializers answer: Motivation, Customer Service, Education, Culture-change, Leadership. But most of all, to be Heretics vs. Fundamentalists.
Step 1: Evaluate typical local messaging and methods of communication around recession. Gain Insights through Social Intelligence Projects and on-going social media monitoring.
Step 2: Compose “culture-changing” messaging, campaign strategy and brand orientation. A good heretic and thought-leader will be able to pump out vast material around this within a solid 7-10 days. Focused creative project.
Step 3: Segment your market and “culture-change” packages and start selling. Informed by insights and data analysis.
Step 4: Identify critics ahead of time and chart how their critiques may fuel the fire of your creatives. Give your creatives license to be on-fire Heretics through culture-changing activities. Study the Eleftherians in Greek myth, like the god Eros for basic archetypal material to inform the ethos here.
Step 5: See PR as a vacuum-cleaner. Uphold Assange-types (Wikileaks) as internal cleaners, preparing the enterprise to go social. Have a plan regarding external gossip and internal junk.
Step 6: Crowdsource the entire economic and political landscape. Big and great project! The customer will decide next year’s (a) product line and design (b) distribution channels (c) campaign style.