When the naira slid again and diesel prices doubled, two paint manufacturers in Ogun State made opposite decisions.
The first cut marketing to zero. “We’ll come back when things settle,” the MD said, which is what everyone says.
The second trimmed the waste, kept a steady presence on radio and WhatsApp, and kept answering every dealer enquiry within the hour.
A year later, things still hadn’t settled. They rarely do here. But the second company had picked up three distributors the first one used to own, and the first company was paying more than ever just to be remembered.
When the economy tightens, and Nigerian businesses have had more practice at this than most, marketing is usually the first line on the chopping block. It feels prudent. It’s discretionary, it’s hard to tie to this month’s survival, and everyone else is cutting too.
This is one of the few questions in marketing where a century of evidence points overwhelmingly one way, and it points away from instinct.
Businesses that keep or raise marketing through downturns consistently recover faster, gain share and outperform for years afterwards. Those that go dark pay a premium, for years, to rebuild what they abandoned.
The useful question is how to change what your marketing does when money is tight.
What a Hundred Years of Evidence Shows
The studies span every downturn since the 1920s and keep finding the same shape.
Jim Collins calls this the 20 Mile March in Great by Choice. The companies that win over decades hit a steady target every year, holding back in boom times and pushing on in bad ones. The second paint company was marching.
A McGraw-Hill analysis followed 600 B2B companies through the early-1980s recession. Those that kept or raised advertising saw dramatically stronger sales growth through the recession and the years after, commonly cited at 256% over those that cut. Analyses of the PIMS database found companies that increased marketing in downturns won roughly double the market-share gains of modest spenders during the recovery. A 2011 Journal of Marketing study found firms systematically underspend in recessions at their own cost, and that markets rewarded the companies that didn’t.
The classic cases are almost folklore. Kellogg doubled its spending into the Depression while market leader Post cut back, and took a category lead it held for generations. Pizza Hut and Taco Bell grew through the 1990 to 1991 recession while a retreating McDonald’s shrank.
The mechanism is simple arithmetic about attention. Advertising works partly through share of voice, your slice of all the marketing noise in your category. When competitors cut, the noise drops, and the same naira buys a bigger share of the conversation than it could in boom times. Media and auction prices often fall at the same moment. Marketing in a downturn means buying attention in a falling market, which is the thing every investor claims to want and almost none has the nerve to do.
The cost of going dark has been measured. Research from Ehrenberg-Bass finds a brand that stops advertising loses on the order of 16% of sales after one year, and around a quarter after two. Rebuilding takes longer and costs more than the pause ever saved. Silence is a loan against future revenue, at a terrible interest rate.
Change What You Spend On
None of this means spending blindly while revenue falls. Cutting everything is wrong, and so is changing nothing. The evidence and hard-times practice both support moving the money around.
- Cut waste with a scalpel. Put the axe away. A downturn finally forces you to learn which half of the budget works, and this is where measurement pays for itself within a quarter. Reconciled numbers let you cut the spend that produces nothing, and every budget over ₦1M a month has some, while protecting or feeding what demonstrably brings customers. Businesses without measurement cut blind, and they usually cut the wrong things.
- Shift weight toward owned channels. When every rented impression has to be bought again, the channels you own become far more valuable. Email and WhatsApp reach your existing customers, the cheapest revenue you have, at almost no extra cost. Retention economics are always strong, and they become decisive when acquisition budgets are tight and every customer’s lifetime value is an asset you can’t afford to leak.
- Fix conversion while traffic is precious. When you can’t afford more visitors, making each one count is the growth lever that costs discipline instead of media money. Scarcity sharpens the whole CRO argument.
- Meet buyers where they’ve moved. Customers keep buying in a downturn, but carefully. They research longer, compare harder and favour businesses that acknowledge reality. Messaging that leads with value, durability and proof beats aspirational fluff, and being open about pricing beats awkward silence. The businesses that grow in hard times usually change what they say, as well as how loudly they say it.
- Keep a floor under visibility. Whatever else moves, don’t go fully dark on the brand-building layer. The share-of-voice evidence is clear. Presence you keep while others vanish turns into share you gain when spending returns. Even a reduced, consistent presence beats silence by a wide margin.
The Nigerian Version of This Argument
Nigerian businesses don’t experience downturns as rare shocks. They’re a recurring operating condition, with currency swings, squeezed purchasing power and sudden cost spikes. So the lesson changes from surviving the storm to building for the weather.
The structures this whole library argues for are exactly what make a marketing operation shock-resistant. That means measurement you trust, conversion that doesn’t waste traffic, owned channels that compound, and a budget worked out from unit economics instead of optimism.
The share-of-voice opportunity is, if anything, bigger here. Most competitors cut to zero at the first tremor. A business that keeps even modest, well-aimed visibility can buy years of competitive position at a discount, in every cycle. I think it’s one of the most underrated advantages available to a Nigerian business.
Before You Cut Anything
Sort your current spend into three groups. The first is what you can prove brings customers. The second is what you can’t measure yet. The third is what you know is waste.
Cut the third, start measuring the second, and protect a floor under the first. Nerve without measurement is just gambling with a nobler story.
Cut With a Scalpel
The first paint company is advertising again now, at higher rates, to dealers who’ve already been won over by somebody else. The second company never had to win them back, because it never left.
If you can’t tell what’s safe to cut, start with the free 2-minute diagnostic. It shows which of your four walls is weakest, so you protect the right line.
Businesses spending ₦1M or more a month on marketing also qualify for a free 30-minute Leak Check, which is worth booking before any budget meeting.
The paint companies are illustrative. Evidence cited includes the McGraw-Hill recession analyses, PIMS database studies, Srinivasan et al. (Journal of Marketing, 2011), Binet and Field’s share-of-voice research, and Ehrenberg-Bass Institute findings on advertising cessation, as reported in published sources current as of mid-2026. Historical findings are directional and depend on context. This article is general information, not financial advice.
This article covers one part of a bigger system. Our guide to digital marketing in Nigeria shows how the four walls fit together, and the order to build them in.
