Advertise in a recession? You bet!

“There’s a saying: ‘When times are good, advertise. When times are tough, advertise more,’ ” said Dan Beem, president at Cold Stone Creamery in Scottsdale, Ariz., the ice-cream chain owned by the Kahala Corporation. “We want to stay with that philosophy.”

Should you market your products during an economic downturn? The answer is an unequivocal, “Hell, yes!”

Advertising in a downturn helps you in several ways. First, it can help you maintain sales. If you don’t market, your sales will slip. Second, it can help you gain market share. Many of your competitors will make knee-jerk decisions to slash their marketing budget. That’s good news for you, since their market share has just become yours for the taking.

There’s a thoughtful story about marketing in a recession, published in yesterday’s New York Times. The quote above is from that story, entitled “A Strategy When Times Are Tough: ‘It’s New!’ “