What the Evidence Tells GCC Businesses
About Marketing Through Disruption
| Written For | You Will Take Away |
|---|---|
| Marketing directors reviewing their 2026 plans | The evidence case for staying active — with named sources |
| Business owners weighing the case for continued spend | Recent case studies and real revenue numbers |
| Finance leaders evaluating marketing as investment | Sectors actively growing through this period |
| Any brand navigating uncertainty in the GCC right now | Five practical principles you can apply this week |
When conditions become uncertain, the first instinct for most businesses is to pause. Freeze the campaigns. Hold the budget. Wait to see how things settle before committing to spend.
That instinct is understandable. It is also, as five decades of evidence consistently show, one of the more costly decisions a business can make during a period of disruption.
This paper does not make the case for spending recklessly. It makes the case for something more specific: that going quiet is not a neutral act, that the evidence on what happens to brands that pause is clear and well-documented, and that the businesses best positioned for the next 12 months are the ones that treat this period as a moment to stay present and be strategic — not to disappear.
1. What the Research Consistently Shows
Three separate bodies of research, each conducted independently and spanning different time
periods and methodologies, arrive at the same conclusion.
+17%
Rise in Incremental Sales
For brands that maintained or increased digital spend during the last recession — Analytic Partners ROI Genome Report, 2022 — 750+ brands, 45 countries, hundreds of billions in spend analysed
−25%
Average Sales Decline
For brands that stop advertising for two years — reaching −36% by year three — Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, Journal of Advertising Research, 2021 — peerreviewed,
20-year longitudinal study
5×
More Profit Growth
For brands that maintained marketing investment compared to those that cut during a downturn — Field & Binet / IPA analysis — updated through 2022
The logic behind these numbers is not complicated. When competitors reduce their marketing presence, the cost of attention drops and the available space clears. Brands that remain visible are not competing against the same level of noise as before. Their budgets go further. And when buying behaviour normalises, consumers and businesses remember who was there.
At HOP, we have seen a similar trend with one of our clients belonging to the Health & Fitness industry. Their CPMs dropped by 51% in March post the regional conflict resulting in 25% growth in leads at a reduced Cost Per Lead (CPL) by 32%. Based on these metrics, the reach increased by 70% whilst maintaining an already healthy frequency.
The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, one of the world’s leading evidence-based marketing research bodies, found that resuming advertising after a pause does not immediately reverse the damage. It takes significantly longer than one year of active marketing to recover from one year of silence.
2. What This Looked Like in Practice
P&G and Coca-Cola — COVID-19, 2020
In April 2020, as global lockdowns took hold, two of the world’s most recognised consumer brands faced an identical situation and made opposite decisions.
Procter & Gamble’s CFO Jon Moeller told analysts: “There’s big upside here in terms of reminding consumers of the benefits that they’ve experienced on our brands. This is not a time to go off air.” The company increased its marketing spend by more than $320 million in a single quarter. Coca-Cola cut its advertising investment by 35%.
| Company | Decision | Full-Year 2020 Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Procter & Gamble | Increased spend by $320M | +4% revenue growth |
| Coca-Cola | Cut advertising spend by 35% | −11% revenue decline |
| PepsiCo | Maintained marketing investment | +5% net revenue growth |
Source: Company earnings reports and analyst calls, full-year 2020. P&G CFO quoted in Marketing Dive, April 2020.
Amazon — the 2008 Financial Crisis
During the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, Amazon launched the Kindle, continued investing in marketing and fulfilment infrastructure, and focused on making itself more useful to customers rather than less visible. Its revenue grew 28% in 2009 — a year when the global economy contracted.
The companies that retreated from customer communication during that period lost ground they spent years recovering. Amazon gained ground it has never relinquished.
“The decisions made during a period of disruption shape competitive positions for years afterward — not just quarters.”
3. Sectors Actively Growing in the GCC Right Now
Not every sector faces the same conditions. Some categories have experienced genuine disruption. Others are growing precisely because of the current environment — and they are actively spending on digital marketing to reach their customers.
Healthcare, clinics & wellness
GROWING
Patient acquisition, SEO, paid
search
Education & e-learning
RECESSION-PROOF
Performance marketing, SEO,
social
Fintech & financial
services
RESILIENT
Performance marketing,
brand trust
B2B SaaS & technology
RESILIENT
SEO, content marketing,
LinkedIn
Relocation & business
services
GROWING
Paid search, social, web
Energy & renewables
GROWING
Thought leadership, digital
strategy
Pharmaceutical &
medical
RECESSION-PROOF
Compliant digital content,
SEO
Consumer staples &
value retail
STABLE
Performance marketing,
retention
Corporate training &
B2B education
STABLE
Paid media, content, SEO
If your business operates in one of these categories, the opportunity is real. Competitors in your space are pausing. The cost of reaching your customers digitally is falling. The audience is still there, still active, still making decisions. The question is whether they find you.
4. What ‘Staying Visible’ Actually Looks Like
Staying visible does not mean continuing with every campaign unchanged. It means making deliberate, evidence-led decisions about where to protect, where to restructure, and where to act. Here are five principles that apply regardless of sector or budget size.
1
Triage Before You Cut
Most marketing budgets contain a mix of high-performing and underperforming activity. A blanket cut eliminates both indiscriminately. A focused review typically reveals that 60–80% of spend is generating the vast majority of results. Protect what is working. Reassess the rest on its own merits.
2
Update the Message, Not Just the Channel
What resonates with customers shifts during periods of uncertainty. Aspirational or lifestyleled messaging often needs reframing toward value, reliability, and practical benefit. This is not about sounding alarmed — it is about sounding relevant. The channel, the audience, and the budget can remain intact; the creative and the copy should reflect where your customers are right now.
3
Invest in Organic While Paid Costs Are Lower
Search engine optimisation compounds over time. A brand that continues publishing useful, well-structured content during a quieter period builds rankings that persist long after conditions normalise. Simultaneously, paid media auction costs fall when competitors pull back — meaning the same budget reaches more of the right audience than it did six months ago.
4
Prioritise Retention Above All Else
Retaining an existing customer costs five to seven times less than acquiring a new one. Email, direct communication, loyalty programmes, and content that reinforces the value of an existing relationship should be the last things paused — not the first. Customers who feel wellserved during a difficult period become long-term advocates. Those who feel ignored during one often do not return.
5
Measure What Matters Right Now
During disruption, some standard metrics become less useful in isolation. Brand search volume, direct website traffic, email engagement, and content saves are leading indicators of maintained relevance. Tracking these alongside conversion metrics gives a more complete picture of whether your marketing is doing its job — and where to focus.
5. A Note on This Moment for GCC Businesses
The Gulf has navigated significant disruptions before and has consistently demonstrated the capacity to recover its economic momentum. The region’s structural advantages — its connectivity, its infrastructure, its concentration of talent and capital, its position as a global transit hub — are enduring. They are not defined by any single period.
What is important to understand right now is that your customers have not stopped making decisions. They are still searching for products and services, still comparing suppliers and providers, still forming preferences based on who is visible and credible. Search data consistently shows that intent-based behaviour — people actively looking for solutions — continues through disruption. The brands present in those searches are building relationships. Those that are absent are ceding ground quietly, one search at a time.
In fact, during COVID the GCC customer demonstrated a trend that still resonates with premium beauty brands. Comparatively to other regions, this customer base has more disposable income. During this period, premium beauty brands saw a significant increase in sales as the customer decided to treat themselves during lockdown.
The businesses that come out of this period with the strongest market positions will not necessarily be the ones that spent the most. They will be the ones that spent thoughtfully, stayed consistent, and remained part of the conversation their customers were having — even when the backdrop was uncertain.
Every week a brand is inactive is a week of compound interest paid to whoever stayed present. The next 90 days are not just a budget decision — they are a positioning decision that will shape where your brand sits when conditions stabilise and growth resumes.
The evidence is consistent. The case studies are recent. And the practical steps are available to any business, at any budget level, starting now.
The instinct to pause is human. The opportunity to act is here.
Sources
- Analytic Partners. “ROI Genome Intelligence Report: How to Maintain Advertising Effectiveness in Challenging Times.” August 2022.
- Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science. “When Brands Go Dark: Examining Sales Trends when Brands Stop Broad-Reach Advertising for Long Periods.” Journal of Advertising Research, 2021. Authors: Hartnett, Beal, Kennedy, Sharp, Gelzinis.
- Field, P. and Binet, L. “The Long and the Short of It.” IPA, updated analyses through 2022.
- Procter & Gamble. Earnings call transcript and Form 8-K, Q3 FY2020. CFO Jon Moeller.
- Coca-Cola Company. Full-year 2020 annual report and earnings statement.
- Ritson, M. “P&G and Coke’s pandemic performances prove it: You don’t cut ad spend in a crisis.” Marketing Week, August 2021.
- Amazon Inc. Annual Report 2009.
- Middle East Council on Global Affairs. “The Costs of the Iran Conflict for the Gulf.” March 2026.
- Al Jazeera. “Gulf economies suffer brunt of Iran war as recession risk looms.” March 2026.
This whitepaper is produced for general informational and educational purposes. It does not constitute financial, legal, or commercial advice. All data is attributed to its original source.
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