How Marketers Lead Communication Amid Inflationary Times

Inflation has become a universal problem threatening businesses’ bottom lines and household balance sheets the world over.   

First disruptions to global supply chains amid the COVID-19 pandemic caused prices for goods and transporting them to rise. Then Russia’s war on Ukraine caused prices for food, energy, metals, and intermediate goods to rise. Squeezing profit margins and forcing firms to pass those rising costs onto customers. Adding to that, labor shortages among a number of economies pushed wages, and, thereby, input costs higher. Now, key economies are slowing in response to the erosion of demand due to inflation and rising central bank interest rates to combat it.  

How do business executives communicate the challenges of rising inflation to key stakeholders, including the board, employees, and, importantly, customers? History has shown that an inflationary market can make it harder to hit volume targets and may result in practices that damage brand equity: prices go up, critical price points are broken, demand falls, sales fall, people panic. History has also shown how to rise to these challenges and still grow your business.  

Here is where chief marketing officers step in to be the vanguard of effective corporate communications when rising prices cloud the outlook. We offer six insights to provoke your thinking and help shape your story: 1) keep a big-picture focus on the economy; 2) revisit what you think you know; 3) size is important; 4) branding is even more important; 5) digital has changed the balance of power; and 6) the truth matters, but not to everyone.  

To learn more, see this prescient insight: What's Ahead: Marketing Implications of the Inflation Outlook, published on January 10, 2022, which delves more deeply into these six insights.