There is a particular kind of silence that falls over Madison Avenue when economic anxiety rises but nobody wants to be the first to say the word "cheap."
According to a new report, American consumers are cutting back on spending, a development that would ordinarily send marketers scrambling to tout value, savings and the timeless appeal of getting more for less. But in what appears to be a collective act of strategic restraint, brands are largely avoiding overt value messaging, preferring instead to let the subject go politely unmentioned.
The reasons for this reticence are not difficult to imagine. Value messaging, while effective in the short term, carries its own risks — chief among them the possibility that a brand, once associated with thrift, may find it difficult to command premium prices when the economy improves. (And economies, as even the most pessimistic forecasters will admit, do eventually improve.)
In other account news, JustFoodForDogs, the premium pet food company that makes fresh meals for dogs who have presumably tired of kibble, has named a social agency of record. The selection continues a pattern among pet brands of treating their marketing with the same seriousness once reserved for automobiles and financial services — a development that says something about either the elevation of pets or the deflation of everything else, depending on your perspective.
Meanwhile, Dentsu has released its latest advertising spending forecast, joining the seasonal ritual in which holding companies offer their predictions for global ad expenditures. These forecasts, which arrive with the regularity of the tides, serve as useful benchmarks for the industry even when — perhaps especially when — they turn out to be wrong.
The broader question of how brands will navigate a period of consumer caution without actually discussing consumer caution remains open. For now, the industry appears content to speak of quality, of experience, of everything except the price tag itself.
Some silences, after all, are louder than others.
Original story published in adage.com: "Agency Brief: JustFoodForDogs’ social AOR, Dentsu ad spend forecast - Ad Age"