Marketers looking for an increased edge during leaner times will discover that certain aspects of online advertising make taking the digital plunge much more practical when every penny counts.

With brands across North America fastening their lifejackets and hunkering down against the lash of a potential recession, businesses are looking for tools to overcome the wilting markets and maintain their position in the industry. More than any economic slump before it, this 2008 recession will separate the businesses that are able to bend and adapt to change from those who will be consistently brow-beaten by their inability to alter their methods to fit economic realities. The reason is simply that more tools and technologies to improve results and mitigate risk exist now than ever before.

When a recession rears its ugly head, one of the first victims is discretionary spending. For many companies, that means advertising. Since return on investment is often difficult to measure, when times are tough, it can be difficult for CFOs to justify financially. However, as people are also cutting back on their own spending, consumer mindshare becomes more important than ever before, as this will be the force that will help companies ride out the recession and maintain a solid customer base. So, while the CFO's role is to batten down the hatches, the CMO's is to raise the sail.

Essentially, a recession asks marketers to build a better boat with fewer materials. The catch? It has to sail farther than ever before.

The digital edge
Marketers who have truly learned to utilize the power of new media and digital marketing will find themselves in control of an extremely powerful tool to combat shrinking budgets and higher expectations. Put simply, digital gives us the power to do more with less, and when the purse strings are pulling shut, it can make the difference between growth and decline.

Both traditional and digital advertising have their benefits, but marketers looking for an increased edge during leaner times will discover that certain aspects of online advertising make taking the digital plunge much more practical when every penny counts.

1. Multiple angles
An effective digital agency, focusing its energies properly, can create several campaigns for the price of producing one television-based campaign -- and connect with many more consumers in the process. Rather than putting it all on red and pumping millions of dollars into a massive traditional media buy, digital allows marketers to hedge their bets. A digital campaign can combine a mix of video, gaming, interactive and social content that will reach multiple demographics, and that, if executed correctly, will identify with the tribes of interest that brands want to touch on.

Creating and spreading embeddable content online puts the message in the hands of the very people it needs to touch -- connecting directly with the most passionate users rather than filtering that contact through paid media. When it comes to interactive, the better the content, the more motivated people will be to share it. Of course, there are costs associated with production (although still usually less than those of a TV spot), but the syndication is free, and the possibilities for spreading the content are limitless. Most importantly, the distribution is genuine, as it comes through social networks, rather than ad networks.

2. Greater consumer engagement
With resources like social networks, blogs, forums and social bookmarking, we are now closer to consumers than we have ever been, and a company that ignores that crucial change is knee-deep in the stream panning for gold, but missing the nugget just upstream. Traditional advertising requires a much more complicated chain of communications -- from client and agency to focus groups to production studio to network executives, and so on. By the time the campaign reaches audiences, hundreds of thousands have been spent and the broken line of communication may have left consumers' interests lost at sea -- at a greater cost. Digital enables companies to go direct to the consumer and optimize spend in the process. 

Twenty years ago, brochures and white papers were the de facto standard for communicating (if you can call it that) with audiences. Today, people can smell authenticity, and brands that are relying on outdated, one-directional tactics are anything but genuine. Consumers want to be engaged; consumers want to be consulted.

The online world enables companies to do that without the need for pretense. Make yourself available to your customers through a campaign that makes use of the nearly infinite feedback methods available online and there's no question about it -- your brand will benefit. When advertising dollars are tight, it can make a huge difference between having a hit campaign and a flop.

3. Speed
The single greatest benefit of going digital is speed -- the speed to deploy a campaign, the speed to measure the results and the speed to adjust if necessary. If a particular online approach isn't moving the needle in a desirable direction, a good digital agency can quickly tweak, re-tool and re-imagine the details based on up-to-the-minute statistics on user engagement. That kind of real-time freedom simply isn't available in traditional advertising, and it makes the digital medium better equipped to deal with the challenges advertisers face today, especially when every dollar needs to count. In essence, an agency working digitally can strive to get the very best results with the fewest straying resources.

Years ago, it took weeks to determine if a campaign wasn't clicking. Now if a campaign is not being discussed in a matter of days we know something's wrong, and rather than our clients being forced to sit back and twist their fingers as their investment doesn't deliver, a digital agency can immediately consult with a client on how to make it stronger, more relevant and more attractive to potential customers. Simply put, you can change a website faster than you can change a billboard.

An opportunity for change
For all its challenges, this recession will bring about new opportunities for the ad industry. Think about this: After 50 years of commercial breaks every seven minutes, eyeballs began to stray. What was the answer? It wasn't really based on innovation -- timing ad breaks across networks so no matter what channel a viewer flipped to, the ads were there, front and center. And then we saw the birth of ideas such as placing ads in front of urinals and on the seat in taxicabs. In a million-channel universe, consumers learned to filter out noise and find the signal they wanted, as the "Cluetrain Manifesto" taught us.

For decades, traditional media has been sliding down fast, clinging to methods that are big, slow and stable: pricing structure has stagnated and innovation has become a watchword that many utter but few help define. Agencies that prefer to let others push the envelope may talk the talk, but are steering the same old battleship, unable to turn it around. When advertising revenues suffer because of a recession, companies who are not used to making the most of every dollar may be left adrift at sea.

Digital agencies, however, have had to fight for their reputation right out of the gate. We were, and in many ways still are, the new kid in the yard, sitting alone at the lunch table... and proving ourselves meant going the distance to be original. From the beginning, agencies working online have been forced to change the perception of interactive by becoming more innovative, improving measurability and ROI, and justifying why online techniques are effective. Rather than bringing our ad to consumers and trying to develop ways to make it inescapable, we invite consumers to find and share our content in a way that blends seamlessly with their existing online lifestyles. Essentially, being the little guy has caused us to continuously evolve, and a part of that evolution means getting the most bang for the buck. In an age where consumers have the luxury to be shrewder and more selective, this recession may force a lot of agencies to rethink their strategies. 

If I was asked where this recession will lead marketers, I would say that the more traditional companies -- the companies that know and are comfortable with mass media -- will be more traditional in how they ride out the storm and stick to the route that's gotten them this far; however, companies without the legacy of big investments and ambiguous results that are looking to improve their foothold and marketing efficiency, and are looking to continue to grow into new markets, will look to digital. For those companies, now is the time to stop toe-dipping and take the plunge into interactive.

With advertisers and audiences moving online in increasing numbers, internet marketing will reward those who are determined to truly push boundaries with their content, and companies who only pay lip service to engaging people online will be filtered out in short order. In the end, it's hard to cause waves when you're scared to get wet.

Warren Tomlin is chief creative officer, Fuel Industries.