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Keynes is often credited with the idea of spending one's way out of

trouble but, in fact, he got it from my wife's family.

But with a recession upon us, the question is how to persuade your board

to maintain, or even increase, marketing investment during the dark

days.

Marketing has usually been the first to be cut in past recessions and it

is right up there now.

Here are some typical chief executive-type excuses for the marketing

budget. "They couldn't have continued spending unless they were stronger

anyway." "We don't have a choice: cutting marketing is the only way to

get to the figures the analysts demand." "Redundancy payments mean that

cutting headcount makes this year's numbers even worse." "If we don't

survive the short-term, there won't be a long-term." "My contract runs

out in 18 months so where's the problem."

What do you do? My colleague, Patrick Barwise, has an excellent book,

Advertising in a Recession, showing that firms holding steady emerge

better and stronger than those that cut their expenditure. The latest

issue of Market Leader provides similar evidence. My first advice is to

thoughtfully leave copies of both lying around for your senior

colleagues to stumble upon. This should help but it may not win the

war.

Now you have three choices: make a fight of it, go with the flow or just

go. Anyone making the third choice should be reading holiday brochures;

walking off the payroll just now will not make finding a new job any

easier.

The rest need to assess their options. Never mind the budget, does

winning the fight increase colleagues' hostility or respect? Is fighting

but losing necessarily bad? Does going with the flow damage marketing's

own internal brand equity both short- and long-term?

Assuming you decide to fight, the advice now is to concede that

marketing must face the music in these difficult times. Tell the chief

executive you are ready to lead a small cross-functional, high-level

team to provide a non-partisan solution. As the answer for year one must

not make year two any worse, and recession will continue for that long,

it must be a two-year plan. Now you can take the savings from downsizing

staff departments.

Far be it from me to suggest this as an opportunity to settle old

scores, but you could make a start with HR.

The plan should include conspicuous but not very substantive cuts in

marketing and some inconspicuous, but more substantive, cuts

elsewhere.

Now for the killer blow. Get your friendly accountants to calculate the

shareholder value for each of the three or four recession strategies the

firm could employ. Providing only two lacks credibility, but giving them

three or four looks like you are really trying, and accountants like

deploying Excel spreadsheets. If the numbers don't come out right, tweak

the residual values until they do. Chief executives never look at

residual values.

Once you have the winning plan, the chairman can tell the analysts,

before they start ugly rumours, about these sophisticated shareholder

value calculations that empower him/her to take the brave decision to

increase marketing investment. If that doesn't work, get out those

holiday brochures.