idsgn (a design blog)

Ije Nwokorie, Senior Strategist at Wolff Olins in the UK discusses the importance of brands in recession.

So, do brands matter in a recession? I think the answer to that is, if brands are about image, then probably not. This notion that brands are an intangible thing that customers subscribe to, has proved not to help businesses defend themselves when new competitors, new models have brought better ideas that customers go for. And I think what the recession has done is put more pressure on brands because—while people understand that the bankers have been greedy, that the politicians have failed to regulate—it's the brands that they interact with everyday that have sold them the mortgages they didn't need, the shoes they could never wear, and the holidays they couldn't afford. I think people are very angry about that...

But the truth of the matter is, great brands have always realized that they are not about image. In fact, they are about reality. They are the reason the business does the things it does, and they are the things that people engage with and learn from that business.