It’s strange how Sales signs start off by being exciting and tempting, and very quickly just look depressing. People will turn off relentless ‘credit crunch’ marketing, and there is a real danger for brands if they become too focused on these messages for too long.

Brand managers are being told that they must re-examine their brand propositions and reframe them within the new economic context, making it clear how the brand can meet customers’ changing needs and expectations about value for money. Messages about better value, longer lasting, less waste, only xp per serving, etc. abound. Of course it’s very important to ensure that existing customers in particular understand that the brands they buy are affordable. Offering great value will very quickly become a pre-requisite - if it isn’t already – but this shouldn’t become the main and continuing message from brands that actually stand for quite different ideas.

But there seems to be an assumption that the recession will turn us all into completely rational beings, evaluating a set of prosaic offers on the basis of rational criteria. And we all know that people aren’t like that. We may be in a phase at the moment where many people are swept along in recession fever, finding that adapting their purchasing behaviour on the grounds of reducing expenditure is a satisfying activity. And of course, for many people, the recession will mean serious and unwelcome changes in disposable income that will mean real changes in expenditure. But sooner or later we’ll get tired of relentless messages about price and frugality, delivered in serious tones peppered with more reminders about the state of the economy. People have got the message – they know they need to spend cautiously. Shouting about it in downbeat tones won’t help.

It is important for brands to stay true to their own ideas, to reinforce what they stand for, behave and communicate in a way that reflects their real personality and tone of voice. Brands that are naturally positive and upbeat and communicate with a light touch shouldn’t suddenly become harbingers of doom and sound miserable. Of course, there is risk in appearing to be out of touch with the harsh realities of people’s lives, and of sounding trivial, but we should recognise that one role brands can play at the moment is simply to help cheer people up. At times of recession people feel the need to escape a little – to do small things that help make them feel happier. Whether that is ordering in a pizza to enjoy with the family instead of going out, or – the ultimate recession ‘cheering up’ purchase – buying a lipstick when you can’t afford a new outfit. Pundits are predicting that we will take refuge from an uncomfortable reality in escapist TV shows and revivals of old musicals, but we can already see a flurry of nostalgia-fests in areas like packaging and advertising.

People will, more than ever, over the next year or so, want to engage with the positive. Brands play an important role in offering certainty in an increasingly insecure world. When confidence in everything is declining, brands must work hard to maintain and build their customers’ trust, by being more transparent, more proactive, more straightforward, more receptive than ever to satisfy more anxious and demanding consumers. But the way in which this is done will be very important. People will be drawn to brands that help them make them feel optimistic rather than depressed. They will respond well to propositions that solve problems for them e.g. feeding your family well for much less money – but will appreciate a light touch and a upbeat tone – like Sainsbury’s “Feed Your Family for a Fiver”.

Brands can inspire people in many different ways. Relevant innovation in product or service is of course a very good way, and the dramatic change in the economy and in people’s perception of their needs will create many new opportunities for adapted or completely new products and services. Brilliant, unexpected design can be uplifting and life-enhancing – and needn’t cost more than dull, prosaic design. Communications that display empathy, wit and charm will help to prompt a much-needed smile.

Of course, innovation, behaviour and communications must be true to the brand. Nothing would be more irritating than relentless misplaced frivolity. But one way of thinking about it would be consider whether everything the brand says or does could simply be crafted to be more uplifting, reassuring, nurturing, enjoyable – whatever positive nuance is a natural extension of the brand personality.

Brands should try to make small but important contributions to happiness, rather than serving as a continuous reminder of economic challenges and difficulties ahead. Concentrating too much on the purely practical, the prosaic and the price-driven can undermine the magic of a brand, carefully built up over time.

Dorothy Mackenzie, Chairman, Dragon Rouge in London

This article is due to appear in Brand Management, Mar/Apr 09