What to Expect When You're in a Recession

When the economy takes a fall, advertising tends to fall right along beside it. That's what happened during the last recession back in 2001. Now, seven years later, despite ad bonanzas like the Olympics and the Presidential race, the sputtering of the country's economic engine are already sending tremors through the ad industry. The current circumstances of the economy—including a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry and the possible bankruptcies of one or more of the Big Three U.S. automakers—have led many to believe that the next recession will be a particularly deep and long one. As sales falter, marketers will begin making changes for changes' sake, executives who run advertising search firms say that, if anything, ad-search activity slows down during a recession. The reason? Such searches can be expensive, and companies often find their energies are better spent looking at other aspects of the business.