SMPS white paper says cutting business development activities is like stepping on your own oxygen hose.

Advertising trade associations like the AAAA have been saying for years that it is not a good idea to make deep cuts in advertising, marketing and business development activities during a recession. Furthermore, they've pointed to studies that have shown that marketers who've stayed aggressive during a recession see major improvements in the market dominance of their brands when the economy has rebounded.

Now a marketing colleague in my city who is the CMO for a major commercial construction company in Southwest Florida points to a study by the SMPS (Society for Marketing Professional Services) that suggests the same thing. Warren Simonds of Willis A. Smith Construction Inc. said in his guest column in the bi-weekly SRQ Journal that cutting marketing and business development activities in a recession is like "stepping on your own oxygen hose." I love that analogy. And he's absolutely right.

The worsening economy calls for more, better, smarter marketing efforts. This is no time for retreat. The significance of the SMPS study, and Simonds' statements, is that they are coming from people on the client side of the desk, not a bunch of advertising industry people on self-serving, business preservation autopilot. It's the people who buy marketing and advertising services. More info at SMPS.org.