Thinking more about my last post, I think I was wrong. Good times will come again to the stock market and to newspapers and to the businesses that buy advertising. Sure, we may be in the basement, but the basement is the foundation of a solid business.
"Buy low, sell high" has always been good advice. Advertising during a down economy is also good advice, in part because many of your company's competitors will pull back. You will become more visible in the marketplace as the cacophony of advertising messages lessens.
It will cost money, and the short term might be tight, but over the course of several years, as the economy inevitably cycles back, your company will be in the top position because you stuck around in the consumer's mind.
For newspapers, it may mean a temporary lowering of ad rates. It will certainly call for aggressive and creative cross selling across print, web and mobile products, but it can be done. Not all companies will refuse to cut advertising, but the smart ones will.
And smart newspapers will put together appealing packages for them while they continuously improve their product. Information is a necessary commodity in any economic setting. I hope most newspapers are smarter than they have been acting so far in the downturn. Drastically cutting the producers is not the answer.
It will be interesting in a few years to see who survived and how they did it.
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