This is interesting.

Some people are posting this presentation, but I want to add some words on.

When you first see it you immediately think it’s a good material about marketing and business investments during recession periods. And, the first slides are really about it.

A clear and well written point (not to mention the beautiful graphics) on why brands need to keep investing – how this leads to market share gains, how you can beat competitors in the long term, the golden opportunity for brand building.

But, then, it kind of reveals the real intent.

You just feel uncomfortable when reading a chart that says: “New media are less effective at brand building” (strange, isn’t it?)

The reason is that this presentation is not a conceptual piece about advertising, but a selling effort from a magazine.

And the thinking reveals a fallacy in order to sell ad spaces.

Anyways, I think it’s a shame.

The Economist could have stand the voice on how deeply they understand about brand building during hard recessive times, positioning as a reference. But, instead, they just tried to push something and lost credibility.

Just feels like a missed opportunity to make a broader connection.