What Kellogg’s and John Lewis Teach Us About Staying Visible in Uncertain Times

When conditions get harder, the instinct is often to go quiet. Businesses review the budget, pause anything that does not feel immediately urgent, and wait for things to feel easier before investing again. On the surface, that can feel sensible. It feels measured, cautious and responsible.

But there is a difference between being careful with spending and disappearing from view altogether.

In a buoyant market, a business can often rely on momentum. Referrals keep coming in, repeat clients return, and reputation does a lot of the heavy lifting. In a tougher market, the buying process changes. People still need services, support, advice, products and trusted partners, but they become more considered. They research more carefully, compare more options and take longer to make decisions. They look for more evidence before making contact. That is exactly when visibility becomes more important, not less.

A cautious buyer is not an absent buyer. They may still need the architect, the law firm, the consultant, the specialist contractor, the venue, the agency or the professional partner. What changes is the level of reassurance they need before they decide who to approach. If someone is considering working with you, they will almost certainly look at your website, your services, your people, your case studies, your reviews, your social presence and your recent work before they ever make an enquiry.

They are not only asking, “Can this business do the job?” They are also asking, “Do I trust them?” That question becomes louder when the market feels uncertain. When budgets are under pressure, decisions carry more weight. People want to know they are choosing well. They want to feel confident that the business they approach is established, active, credible and capable of delivering.

Marketing is confidence-building, not noise

Part of the reason marketing gets cut first is that it is often misunderstood. It is still too often seen as a nice-to-have, a set of social posts, a few adverts, or something to do when there is spare time. But strategic marketing is much more fundamental than that. At its best, marketing is confidence-building infrastructure. It is how a business presents its value, explains its expertise and gives people the evidence they need to choose it.

It is the website that explains what you do clearly. It is the case study that proves you can deliver. It is the article that shows how you think. It is the service page that helps a buyer understand whether you are right for them. It is the photography, language and presentation that make the outside of the business match the standard of the inside. For established businesses, marketing is not just about being seen. It is about making sure the reputation you have earned in the real world is reflected properly online.

That matters because most buyers will check. They may already know your name. They may have been referred to you. They may have heard good things about your work. But they will still look you up. In that moment, your digital presence either reinforces the trust that already exists, or it creates hesitation.

A strong recommendation can be weakened very quickly by a dated website, unclear messaging, thin service pages or a lack of recent proof.

The cost of going quiet

Going quiet can feel like discipline, but the longer-term cost is often hidden. A business does not usually feel the effect immediately. Existing relationships may keep things moving for a while. Referrals may continue. Work may still come in. But while the business feels steady on the surface, awareness can start to fade. Future buyers see competitors more often. The market starts to associate confidence and activity with someone else.

Research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute found that brands which stopped advertising for a year or more often saw sales decline year on year. On average, sales fell by 16% after one year without advertising, 25% after two years, and 36% after three years. The decline was fastest for brands that were already weakening before they stopped advertising, which is particularly important in difficult markets because many businesses pull back precisely when they most need to rebuild confidence.

That is the real risk of underinvesting in visibility. It does not always look dramatic at first. A dated website can make a strong business look behind the times. A vague service page can make real expertise feel less specialist than it is. A lack of case studies can make proven results harder to believe.

A quiet social presence can make an active business look inactive.

Most buyers will not tell you they chose someone else because your website felt tired or because another business gave them more reassurance. They simply move on.

Kellogg’s and the advantage of staying visible

One of the strongest examples comes from the Great Depression. At the time, Kellogg and Post were both major cereal brands. When the economy crashed, Post did what many businesses do in difficult conditions: it reduced expenses and cut back on advertising. Kellogg took a different approach. It doubled its advertising budget, moved aggressively into radio advertising and promoted Rice Krispies. By 1933, Kellogg’s profits had risen by almost 30%, and it had become the dominant player in the cereal market.

The lesson is not that every business should simply spend more during a downturn. That would be too simplistic. The more useful lesson is that visibility compounds when others retreat. When competitors become quieter, less confident or less present, the businesses that continue to communicate clearly can look stronger by comparison. They become easier to remember, easier to trust and easier to choose.

For modern businesses, this does not necessarily mean a big advertising campaign. It may mean strengthening a website, publishing better case studies, improving service pages, updating photography, clarifying a message, or creating content that directly answers the questions buyers are already asking. The principle is the same. When the market feels uncertain, people look for confidence. If your business is still showing up with clarity and proof, that matters.

What John Lewis understands about brand memory

John Lewis is a very different example, but it reinforces the same point. Its Christmas advertising became powerful not because of one campaign, but because of consistency over time. The adverts became part of the national conversation because people came to recognise and expect them. They built memory, emotion and familiarity year after year.

Most businesses do not need anything on that scale. A professional firm, hotel, consultancy, agency, contractor or specialist service business does not need to become a national cultural moment. But the underlying principle still applies. Recognition is built before the enquiry.

Trust is built before the sales conversation. Confidence is built through repeated, consistent signals that help people understand who you are, what you stand for and why you are worth choosing.

That is why visibility should not be treated as something separate from reputation. They are connected. If you are known for quality, your online presence should show quality. If you are known for care, your messaging should feel considered. If you are known for expertise, your website should demonstrate it. If you are known for delivering excellent work, your case studies should prove it.

The brands that faded when they lost relevance

There are also cautionary examples of what happens when brands lose visibility, relevance or clarity. These stories are rarely about marketing alone. Businesses decline for many reasons: poor leadership, operational issues, debt, changing technology, pricing pressure, competition and shifts in customer behaviour. But marketing is often part of the story because marketing is how a business stays connected to the market it serves.

Pabst Blue Ribbon is a useful example. The beer brand lost 90% of its sales volume between 1978 and 2001 before rebuilding through a grassroots marketing approach that made it culturally relevant again. It had not disappeared completely, but it had faded from attention. The revival worked because the brand found a way to become meaningful to a new audience rather than relying on old recognition alone.

Debenhams is another example closer to home. It was once a familiar and trusted British retail name, but familiarity did not protect it. YouGov data showed that its brand health declined significantly over the decade before its collapse, with its Index score falling from 30.9 in 2010 to 21.8 in 2020. Debenhams did not fail simply because people had never heard of it. It failed despite being well known, because being known is not the same as being chosen.

Boohoo later bought the Debenhams brand and e-commerce operation, but not the physical stores, stock or financial services. That distinction matters. The high street Debenhams business disappeared, while the name continued online under new ownership. Boohoo has since leaned heavily on the Debenhams brand as part of a wider marketplace strategy, but the more useful lesson here is not about a simple rebrand. It is about the value, and limits, of inherited brand recognition. A famous name can still hold power, but only if it is made relevant to how people buy now.

Boohoo itself also offers a more current warning. In 2025, its leadership acknowledged that, at the point of greatest competition from the likes of Shein, the business had diverted investment away from proposition and marketing into warehouses and infrastructure. Sales across Boohoo, MAN and PrettyLittleThing reportedly fell by 21%. Operational investment matters, but if the proposition weakens and the brand loses heat, infrastructure alone will not create demand.

Even Nike has had to confront this. Nike has not disappeared, of course, but it is a useful reminder that even the strongest brands cannot live forever on past fame. In late 2024, Nike reported revenue declines and began shifting resources away from performance marketing and back towards brand building as part of its turnaround plan. That is significant because Nike is one of the most recognisable brands in the world. If a brand of that size still needs to invest in meaning, memory and cultural relevance, smaller businesses certainly cannot afford to assume people will simply remember them.

Sharper, not louder

None of this means businesses should panic, overspend or start marketing frantically. In uncertain conditions, marketing should become sharper, not louder. The answer is not necessarily to do more of everything. It is to make sure the essentials are working properly. Your website should make your value clear. Your service pages should answer the questions buyers already have. Your case studies should show evidence. Your messaging should explain why you are the right choice. Your digital presence should reflect the quality, credibility and reputation your business has already earned.

This is particularly important for established businesses. For a start-up, marketing is often about getting noticed. For an established business, it is also about protecting what has already been built. Reputation, referrals, client confidence, staff pride, recruitment, premium positioning and future demand are all affected by how the business shows up. If your real-world reputation is strong but your online presence is weak, the gap becomes a commercial risk.

In trust-led sectors, that gap matters even more. People are not simply buying a product or ticking a box. They are choosing who to trust with something important: a project, a property, a professional relationship, a guest experience, a business decision, a legal matter, a brand, a building, an investment or a long-term outcome. The more considered the purchase, the more reassurance people need before they make contact.

Visibility is a leadership decision

In harder markets, visibility stops being a marketing question and becomes a leadership decision. How do we want to be seen? Does our digital presence reflect our real-world reputation? Are we making it easy for the right people to understand our value? Are we showing enough proof? Are we protecting the trust we have already earned?

A strong website will not remove uncertainty from the market. But it can remove uncertainty from the buyer’s mind, and that is often the difference between an enquiry and a missed opportunity. The businesses that keep showing up clearly are not necessarily the loudest. They are the ones that continue to give people reasons to remember, trust and choose them.

When the market feels difficult, some businesses go quiet. Others sharpen their message, strengthen their evidence and make sure their presence reflects the standard of the business behind it.

They do not simply shout louder.

They show up better.

At Colloco, we help established, reputation-led businesses make sure their website and brand presence reflect the trust they have already earned. If your business has grown, changed or strengthened, but your online presence has not kept up, that gap is worth looking at.