Recessional Impact on Marketing. Product Development and Values

It is pretty fascinating to think about the long term impact the "Great Recession" will have on us in the years to come. How people who lived through the Great Depression still keep canned food in the basement, and invest in lower yield CDs vs. riskier stocks. Now I know why.

The predictions are, for many reasons, people will remain more frugal and cost conscious in the months and years to come. An interesting WSJ article here gets into specific examples. The one I really like sheds insight into that Hyundai campaign promising to buy your car back if you lost your job. Did it really work? Guess so! :

After focus groups showed widespread fears of job loss, Hyundai in January made people a special offer: If they bought a Hyundai but lost their job within a year, they could bring the car back. Then, from February through April, the company said it would also write buyers a check covering three car payments if they wanted to keep the car. "We're all in this together and we'll all get through this together," said Hyundai's advertising tagline.

Fewer than 200 people took the company up on those job-loss promises, but Hyundai believes consumers reacted to the sense of camaraderie its ads conveyed. Hyundai credits the pledges in the campaign for 15% of its 2009 sales, which have jumped -- up 6.2% through November from a year earlier, according to Autodata.