Agency shares lessons from past recessions

UK-- Inevitably, the shadow of the recession looms large at this year's Research conference, and was tackled head on in a dedicated session this afternoon.

Mark Yeomans and Alex Johnston of Jigsaw Research looked back at past recessions to see what lessons can be applied now, with the help of interviews conducted with industry figures who lived through past downturns.

Although research may not be as recession-proof as some would like to believe, Yeomans and Johnston argued that past recessions helped the industry sharpen its game and turned out to be important steps in its transformation from “the cottage industry that we may have been before to something more efficient”.

The main points of their advice for agencies were to focus on creativity and value for money – echoing the findings of a recent client poll conducted by Virtual Surveys.

Yeomans and Johnston predicted a growing divide between the big established agencies with the strength to weather the storm, and the smaller, nimbler outfits. The ones left in between would be most likely to suffer, they said.

They also suggested that the increased need for confidence in business decisions could help research in its perennial struggle to get a foot in the door of the boardroom.

But the one point of advice that they felt both clients and agencies could benefit from was to “cross your fingers” – underlining once again that the only certainty in these times is uncertainty.

Author: Robert Bain