The Gods Must Be Appeased

Our tough economic times are forcing big brand names to cut back their expenditures, just as their marketers redouble their commitment to finding ways to get their branding accomplished.

I can't help but think of pagan priests who, in the face of a harvest ruined by drought, call up even younger virgins, to have their hearts cut out in a renewed effort to appease the gods.

It's a wild thought, really, to think that the way to sell in difficult selling times would be to do less selling, but that's not how a lot of brand marketing gets sold internally in the first place.  Branding isn't about sales, at least not directly, so a few years ago, brand budgets were spent doing other things -- positioning, educating, building brand equity -- which should now be somehow supporting prices and sales, or so the theology goes. 

Yet the dry weather continues on unabated. 

So divining the future is not so reliable after all, which qualifies those budgets as the first to get cut.  And the priests lording over the biggest brand ziggurats -- automotive, telecos, banking -- are challenging their minions to work around these affronts to the reading of spirits, and find new ways to do the same old thing.

Look for more beating hearts.  More flowing blood.