PANELISTS

Scott Allison is VP sales and marketing for Marriott Hotels & Resorts of Canada. He has an extensive background in hospitality, airline and tourism marketing and consulting in Canada and the U.S.

Steve Allmen is GM, business development for Aeroplan, where he leads new business partnerships in the retail, CPG, financial, travel and B2B sectors. Steve has worked in the loyalty industry for over 10 years.

Tony Chapman is the founder and CEO of Capital C, and one of the youngest people to be inducted into the Marketing Hall of Legends.

Geoff Craig was until recently VP and GM brand building at Unilever Canada, working on brands like Dove, Becel, Axe and Knorr. Our 2007 Marketer of the Year, he is currently enjoying time off "between successes."

Tony Matta is VP marketing for Frito Lay Canada. He has over 10 years of marketing and sales experience in the CPG industry, working on brands such as Lay's, Doritos and Tostitos.

Alex Panousis is SVP at Starcom MediaVest, where she directs strategy on brands like Kellogg's and Nintendo. She has experience in media, advertising and sales at the CBC, PHD Media and the National Post.

Ken Wong is associate professor of business and marketing strategy at Queen's University. He has also taught at Carleton and Harvard, and is an inductee into the Canadian Marketing Hall of Legends.

MODERATOR

Joan McArthur is a partner at 27 Marbles Training, where she teaches advertising and marketing professionals. She also has 20 years of agency experience.

We all know the economic news isn't good. Canada slipped into a recession in late 2008, with employment rates, housing starts, commodity prices and consumer confidence all sinking. In the U.S., despite the Olympics and a presidential election, media spend declined 2% in Q3 2008, per TNS Media data. This came on the heels of a 3.7% Q2 drop, the steepest decline since 2001.

In Canada, Scotia Capital predicted last month that overall advertising in Canada will drop by 4.6% this year, with conventional TV spending taking the biggest hit, followed by print and radio. And P&G in the U.S. said it planned to look at more aggressive media cost-cutting.

And yet many observers are optimistic, pointing out that history demonstrates the value of maintaining ad expenditures in a slow economy. Speaking to Media in Canada upon the release of Bensimon Byrne's Consumerology Report last spring, for instance, agency president Jack Bensimon cited a Strategic Planning Institute study that revealed an average gain of 1.5 share points for brands that increased spending in a recession. And a McGraw-Hill study from 1987 found that companies that kept spending on advertising through the 1982 recession were rewarded by a sales hike of 275% over five years.

So how can Canadian marketers deal with the harsh realities and achieve a positive outcome? Strategy gathered together a roundtable of experts, facilitated by exec editor Mary Maddever, to provide marketing, agency and academic perspectives on the crisis - as well as on the opportunities that might lie ahead.