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Despite all the hyperbole surrounding the recession, it pays not to get too carried away with the doom-mongers. While budgets have been slashed and consumers are becoming ever-more price-conscious, brands are still launching, innovating and using new technology to chart a path through the inhospitable market conditions.

With this in mind, Marketing joined forces with Yahoo! for the first in a series of round-table discussions that aim to 'open up' marketing categories. We invited a premium group of FMCG experts to join us among the iconic artefacts at London's Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising.

Naturally, the recession was high on every-one's agenda, but, while there is an acceptance that consumers are taking more control in their relationships with brands, our experts argue that marketers must avoid the temptation to get obsessed with the downturn.

'Most of the categories we operate in are flat as a pancake,' says Roisin Donnelly, corporate marketing director for UK and Ireland at Procter & Gamble (P&G). 'There is no change to the nappies you use in a recession, for example.' However, she adds: 'One thing that hasn't changed is talking to the consumer. As the consumer changes, you have to listen to her and see how she is changing.'

Donnelly believes brands that get too focused on price risk alienating consumers. 'Value is not just about price, it is about performance. It is incredibly important in FMCG that you bring engaging products to the market. We are innovating more than ever,' she says, citing the launch of Ariel Excel Gel, which can wash clothes at 15¡C. 'The brands that invest in a recession grow. The brands that don't, decline.'

However, while innovation and NPD are vital, brands are finding their products coming under intense scrutiny from consumers.

Richard Williams, founding partner of branding and design agency Williams Murray Hamm, says the vast amount of product information available online has made people consider their purchases more intensely.

'People are interrogating brands more. My kids know more about brand truths than I ever did. I have never seen people taking so long to look at the back of packets,' he adds.

Former HP Foods and Britvic marketer Andrew Marsden, who now runs his own marketing consultancy, echoes this view, noting that if consumers are uncertain about a product, they will retreat to brands they know and trust. 'The level of consumer experimentation is going down even though manufacturers are trying to innovate,' he argues.

Jenny Skelly, group account director at market researcher TNS, says the downturn has led to 'the return of the canny consumer' - someone who is not afraid to use all the tools at their disposal to attain the best value.

'This is the kind of person who buys own-label gin and puts it into a Gordon's bottle,' she says. 'It is now OK for them to say "I don't have to spend a huge amount, I can actually buy something that I know to be good value."'

Skelly's observation is backed up by posts on money-saving websites, where dozens of users offer tips on how they switched own-label products into branded packaging ('My husband thinks he eats Kellogg's Corn Flakes...').

However, Donnelly mounts a strong defence on behalf of brands. 'Own-labels are only succeeding where there are not strong brands. Where there are strong brands that offer superior performance, people are putting their trust in them,' she insists.

Many of the panellists highlight the trend of nostalgia marketing, most recently seen in campaigns for Sainsbury's and Marks & Spencer, the latter of which ran a three-day 'penny bazaar' last month.

Marsden claims the rules of marketing are also going back in time. 'A lot of people think it's morally quite a good time, resetting our values,' he says. 'For the marketing community, some of the old rules are actually going back to 1.0, not 2.0 and never mind 3.0. We are going back to basics as a point of reference.'

Patrick Cairns, chief executive of infant food brand Plum Baby, talks of 'cocooning' - whereby people are looking for stability rather than excitement in a time of crisis. 'The brands that are striking a chord with consumers are echoing this. People are looking for intimacy and closeness. Ostentatious brands, where the value is in the badging, have fallen by the wayside,' he says.

Brands are well-advised to maintain their marketing and visibility in this climate, but there are mixed views on how online should be best used. Cairns believes that mainstream advertising has become less important. 'Building critical mass with TV advertising is very difficult. People are looking more for intrinsic value than that,' he says. Marsden disagrees, how-ever. 'We will not see the end of mass TV advertising in my lifetime,' he says. Donnelly adds that people are watching more TV than at any time in the past 10 years.

Digital communication is at the heart of all P&G's marketing, according to Donnelly, although she attempts to steer the discussion away from looking at media platforms in isolation. 'We don't brief on ads, we brief a communication idea,' she explains.

Alison Wright, director of strategy at Engine, says 'ideas that fly' are the core focus at her agency. 'This is an idea that taps into some-thing that consumers are really interested in,' she says. 'Because they ride on an upswell in consumer interest and opinion, those ideas will travel around the internet, they will be picked up in PR.'

Alex Witkowski, digital media director on P&G's business at Starcom MediaVest, says online must be used with the target audience in mind. 'It is about knowing who your consumers are and their relationship with the digital space - what they are doing online,' he adds. 'If you are looking at a 50-year-old, they are using the net as a resource. If you are looking at a younger audience, they want the entertainment where they are now.'

Laurie Kirschner, category director FMCG and head of trade research at Yahoo!, high-lights Walkers' recent 'Do us a flavour' campaign as a relevant use of the web to engage young consumers beyond what would have been possible with a pure TV campaign, and is perplexed by the relatively small share of overall adspend that online still has.

Marsden claims the problem is a lack of understanding, and a preoccupation with the metrics. 'We need to stop thinking about "advertising" and "digital" - what the hell are they? The industry must grow up a bit, frankly, and start to separate some of the marketing rows and tasks within the digital space into more of a marketing language,' he says.

Williams agrees that measurement is not the issue. 'We are looking at online as a static channel. It isn't. When we are talking about measuring stuff, we are talking about the past,' he says.

While the rise of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter has given brands easy access to highly niche groups of consumers who associate themselves with brands, they must tread carefully to avoid alienating people, who can be protective of their online 'space'.

Agustin Beccar Varela, international marketing manager for Ballantine's Finest at Chivas Brothers, wrote in via the Marketing website to ask: 'Assuming that consumers often reject branded and corporate messages, what is the best strategy to balance personally relevant and engaging messages with the fact that brands should make very clear who is talking to consumers?'

Our gathered marketers shift uncomfortably in their seats. 'You go into social media at your peril,' says Marsden. Donnelly adds: 'I haven't seen a model yet that works in Twitter.' 

Cairns, however, has found social media 'pretty useful' for having conversations with customers. 'The biggest problem is managing the quantity and quality of it. You can't promise people an individual conversation and then not stay interested because you don't have time to respond,' he says.

Guy Beresiner, head of commercial development at Yahoo!, has seen brands try and fail in this area. 'We hear time and again of people who get irritated by the intrusion,' he says. 'It is not a public space - it is their personal, private space. That ad sat alongside, no matter how relevant, is tantamount to someone walking up while they are in a pub, having a drink with a friend, and trying to sell them something.'

Witkowski says the solution for some brands could be to facilitate rather than interrupt, whether that is achieved by providing consumers with a platform to converse with like-minded individuals, or by adding an extra dimension to their interaction.

The ongoing economic gloom will continue to encourage FMCG brands to look online for more targeted marketing opportunities, but, as our discussion demonstrates, there are numerous pitfalls along the way.

Only those brands that put the communications idea at the heart of their strategy, and seek to engage with consumers in a relevant and appealing way, will succeed.

Roundtable participants

• Richard Abbott deputy editor Marketing
• Guy Beresiner head of commercial development Yahoo!
• Patrick Cairns chief executive Plum Baby
• Roisin Donnelly corporate marketing director Procter & Gamble
• Ivor Falvey commercial director Haymarket Brand Media
• Laurie Kirschner category director FMCG and head of trade research Yahoo!
• Andrew Marsden consultant Andrew Marsden Consulting
• Caroline Marshall executive editor Haymarket Brand Media
• Mark Rabe managing director and vice-president, sales Yahoo! UK & Ireland
• Jenny Skelly group account director TNS
• James Tipple vice-president, marketing Yahoo! Europe
• Richard Williams founding partner Williams Murray Hamm
• Alex Witkowski digital media director Starcom MediaVest
• Alison Wright director of strategy Engine

Marketing/Yahoo! Roundtables

In a unique series of events, Yahoo! and Marketing are opening up a number of product categories to uncover the BIG issues facing brands today.

We kicked off with FMCG, where consumers are becoming increasingly savvy in their purchase decisions. To combat this trend, marketers are placing consumers at the heart of their marketing strategies. With its wealth of consumer data, targeting tools and extensive reach, Yahoo! helps drive sales by bringing marketers close to their consumers. This, coupled with its in-house category expertise, will help you maximise your digital advertising investment.

To learn more about how Yahoo! can help integrate an effective digital marketing campaign into your FMCG brand plan, contact Laurie Kirschner at kirsch@yahoo-inc.com.