In this video, Christine Peterson, CMO from TripAdvisor, talks about marketing in tough times to consumers by highlighting value.  But what she’s really marketing in transparency.  Many of the new features that TripAdvisor offers just uncover the true price of a plane ticket and the true comparison of pricing on different items such as hotels and resort packages. 

This is a very smart approach that can apply to many businesses.  If customers are asking for lower costs without really comparing fairly, they’re losing and you’re losing.  If customers are given tools to see exactly what the costs are, then they will see where true value is.  This can ultimately be more appealing than the lowest price tag.

The problem is that we usually operate in an environment where low price is king and partnerships are just a reason to bring down prices past the point of profitability (See JB’s Space: What’s A True Partnership).  Laying the groundwork for customers to compare apples to apples, be transparent in business practices may be a better strategy in tough times than simply trying to offer the lowest price.

Marketing value can be tricky, but transparency can help you avoid a commodity spiral and build business based on true partnerships.

This lengthy video posted on FORA.TV is from the The Argyle Executive Forum. It features four marketing folks from different backgrounds discussing the recession and its impact on marketing. It’s interesting that there is so much talk of software and social media. This trend seems to have coincided with the worst economic environment in decades. Does social media and online marketing shield us from an ugly reality that people are buying less? It seems that marketing could use at least some kind of historical lesson on how companies succeeded in past economic hard times without Twitter and Facebook? Some of the world’s most enduring brands, after all, survived and thrived during the Great Depression.

Social media is a powerful tool and it’s changing marketing — but so did radio, television, highways, and jet travel. Aren’t there lessons to be learned from past companies that have succeeded in tougher times without Twittering? Read the full story