Recession Over!

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090723/boc_economy_090723/20090723?hub=TopStories

The Bank of Canada is declaring the recession essentially over in Canada and projecting the economy will bounce back at least twice as strongly as in the United States.

Canada is coming out of the deepest and most painful downturn since the Second World War
The bank remains concerned that the fragile financial systems in the United States and Europe may contain more unpleasant surprises

But overall, the new outlook represents a clearly more optimistic view of the Canadian economy
growth is now projected to turn positive in the third quarter (of 2009)," the bank now says.

the central bank adds specifics and context to its new outlook, and almost all are favourable to Canada, especially in relation to the United States.

overall view that it will take until mid-2011 for Canada's economy to return to full capacity.

What is happening, say the economists in the bank's governing council, is that Canadians are responding to low interest rates and growing confidence by pulling the trigger now on such big-ticket items as houses, cars, furniture and appliances they were planning to purchase later.

The U.S. has stopped shrinking, but is still likely not growing. And Europe may still be in recession, along with Japan. Next year, the U.S. will only rebound by 1.4 per cent, less than half Canada's rate, and the European area by a mere 0.7 per cent. The strongest engine of growth globally is China

Just as Canadian exports of autos and wood products were hardest hit during the downturn, they will be boosted more than other industries once demand returns in the U.S.

Marketing during a recession

Statistics On Advertising During a Recession


I think Seth Godin outlined marketing's Catch 22 best in his book The Purple Cow (and I am paraphrasing here): When times are tough the tendancy is to conserve capital vs. when times are good the tendancy is to not be aggressive.
As marketers we are so often faced with the dilemma of having to cut advertising in times of economic softness. But here is some real data that you can use to illustrate why that is a bad idea.
McGraw-Hill Research study of over 600 Businesses found that:

1981-1982 – business that maintained or increased their ad spend during this time

* Averaged higher sales growth during the recession and in the following 3 years!

By 1985 – sales of the businesses that maintained or increased their ad spend during that recession

* Sales had risen 256% over those that had cut back on advertising

Likewise in 2001 – another study found that aggressive recession advertisers

* Increased market share 2 ½ times the average for all businesses in the post-recession

In 2002 – the Strategic planning institute illustrated that during economic expansion

* Although 80% of businesses increased their advertising spend there was NO improvement in market share

* Why? - because everyone has increase ad spending!

Full Disclosure: I got these stats from a paper called Innovating through a Recession by Professor Andrew J. Razeghi at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Not only did I thank him for writing this paper, blogged about it, tweeted it but I also invited him to do a podcast with me so stay tuned!