There is an interesting though little-noticed correlation between corporate marketing and the educational programs used in many corporations. When the economy goes south, as it certainly has the past few years, many traditional companies scale back — and often scale back significantly — on their marketing and educational programs.
While this is quite common, it goes against the advice of many business experts and lessons learned from history. For instance, it is well documented that while Post Cereals, the dominant cereal company in the U.S. before the Great Depression, scaled back on its marketing efforts, its major competitor but much smaller rival, Kellogg’s, increased its marketing. Since then, Kellogg’s has always been the leading cereal manufacturer in the U.S., and Post has always been in the second position.