Navigating the Tariff Terrain: Strategic Marketing in Uncertain Times

The Trump administration’s imposition of tariffs on April 2 presents companies with immediate financial pressures that require a revaluation of their strategic marketing and product investments.  The global tariff war has the potential to dramatically alter the economic landscape, requiring companies to assess their investments and be prepared to adjust brand and marketing approaches to avoid potentially losing share to competitor actions. The tariffs, which impact a wide range of goods and materials, introduce challenges that require thoughtful and accelerated evaluation and a determination of actions that support short- and long-term needs to build the brand and achieve financial objectives. The environment creates risks and hurdles that require thoughtful actions so as to proactively act to support brand and economic viability.

Acting will require CFOs and CMOs to work together to quickly assess production costs, supply chain disruptions, and shifting price sensitivities that have the potential to impact both short-term performance and long-term brand position with their customers. This goes beyond weathering economic turbulence—it is about identifying a solution and creating competitive separation by leveraging market intelligence and execution agility.

Industries with more complex global supply chains, including automotive, apparel & footwear, consumer electronics, wine & spirits, and others, will face more near-term margin pressure. Escalations will lead to higher prices for end-state products, influencing consumer spending in markets where household debt already stands at record levels and is being challenged further by inflationary rates that remain stubbornly high. Navigating this will require balancing performance and brand marketing, identifying and taking advantage of areas within budgets that have flexibility while synergistically complementing and enhancing areas of fixed budget (i.e., linear TV and sponsorships). Strategies in the mix should consider intensifying digital advertising efforts to be more nimble, leveraging more targeted and localized campaigns, influencer partnerships, and AI-powered ad optimization to ensure effective presence even with constrained budgets.

Affected industries need to determine how to absorb and/or pass through these increases while at the same time adjusting and optimizing marketing investments to maintain margin and protect market share.

Strategic Responses for Marketers

Strategically reallocating and optimizing investments during economic uncertainty has consistently resulted in companies who do, outperforming those who rely more on implementing more arbitrary across-the-board cuts. Past economic downturns, including the 2007 – 2009 Financial crisis and the more recent COVID-19 pandemic, emphasize the need for marketers to balance cost-cutting measures with strategic reallocations that maximize the impact on short-term sales while continuing to maintain and build brand equity – a particularly critical element when pricing actions are in play.

Unified Marketing Measurement is fundamental to understanding and navigating in this environment by targeting, with precision, better, best along with identifying sub-optimal investments. Leveraging this capability, brands can develop targeted campaigns with optimized financial targeting in an efficient manner. The strategic imperative isn’t determining whether to adjust spending – it’s identifying precisely where to adjust and the financial impact related to the adjustments.

Digital marketing’s role becomes more critical as it enhances message effectiveness, reach, and personalization during economic fluctuations. Global digital ad spending is projected to reach $798.7 billion in 2025 and $910.3 billion in 2026. Investments in social media and video platforms are notably increasing, empowering marketers to broaden brand reach, and enhancing consumer interactions. Brands facing margin pressure can benefit from digital media’s faster feedback loops that feed into and continually calibrate and re-calibrate unified measurement models.

Rather than eliminating committed linear and tentpole investments that may already be locked in, companies should look to complement these foundations with targeted digital efforts that enhance message relevance. This dual approach allows marketers to maintain broad reach while simultaneously delivering messaging to price-sensitive and opportunity segments.

The Imperative of Brand Building and Investment: Protecting Long-Term Value

As a result of this we expect there will be pressure to shift marketing dollars to short-term performance channels as a result of the economic uncertainty. Results from this are predictable. Data from previous economic disruptions has shown investing in brand equity helps drive not only short-term success, but long-term value during and post the crisis. There is a need to prioritize campaigns that communicate unique and compelling value propositions specific to brands so as to reinforce and build consumer trust.

Ipsos MMA historical data shows that brands that continue to invest gain share, recover faster, and outperform over 2-3 years. Another important point to consider while making investment decisions is that the effectiveness of performance media is reliant on upper-funnel brand media. Up to 40% of the effectiveness of performance media is driven by brand building or upper funnel marketing. When companies cut upper-funnel brand investments, they don’t just sacrifice future equity but also undermine the effectiveness and efficiency of tactical lower-funnel media in the short term.

Benchmark Insights in Action

Ipsos MMA’s global benchmark database encompasses data, facts and findings from a range of economic events over the past 30 years, including major events such as the global economic decline in 2007- 2009 to COVID-19, as well as periods of inflationary times, geopolitical events, and issues as a result of chip shortages. The data supports understanding the role of marketing during these periods on brand, sales, and price sensitivity, as well as on the short and long-term impact of marketing actions. A review of the following examples highlights some of the findings.

• Global Quick Serve Restaurant Brand — Inflation impacted the QSR and restaurant brands similarly in 2023- 2024. A significant spike in the cost of goods forced all brands to increase prices multiple times during this period. Benchmarks show that QSRs who continued investing in upper-funnel media are outperforming some of their major competitors by >13% during this period in terms of customer traffic and sales versus those who reduced their investments while implementing similar price increases.
• Global Auto Manufacturer— During 2023 – 2024 in markets where the brand maintained a balanced investment strategy (>50% of spend invested in Brand/Upper Funnel Marketing), it experienced significantly lower net price sensitivity. These results were used to identify the most efficient upper-funnel brand investments to maintain equity while driving short-term conversion during this period of uncertainty. This learning enabled them to optimize both marketing and incentives to generate >$80M in incremental sales during this period while reducing incentives and growing profit.
• North American Retailer During COVID-19, the impact of reduced mobility due to the shutdowns impacted retailers. The Home Improvement retail used Unified Marketing Measurement to dynamically measure changes in the marketplace enabling them to pivot throughout the crisis enabling them to quickly establish new marketing ‘next best actions’ to drive sales, shifting to ecommerce, 3rdparty delivery, and curbside pickup. They targeted strategies at product category, sales channel, and state/DMA level as mobility returned. The result enabled them to outflank other retailers while increasing marketing-driven sales by +22% on a reduced budget.
• Leading US Restaurant Group – During the 2008-2009 Financial Crisis, the restaurant group was experiencing a decline in traffic and sales because consumers had less discretionary money to spend. Using advanced analytics, they were able to not only optimize their menu items, pricing, and costs to deliver a profitable but more price-conscious menu but also develop an effective and targeted digital media campaign enabling them to attract consumers while building loyalty and their brand. Sales and traffic stabilized and growth the following year was 3% higher than that before the crisis.

Price Sensitivity and Consumer Segments

Understanding price sensitivity across consumer segments is always important but particularly so now. Ipsos MMA’s research shows that price sensitivity differs across consumer segments, influencing buying decisions and brand loyalty. Brands targeting cost-sensitive consumers need to focus on value-oriented messaging and promotions to retain customers in these segments.

Conversely, highlighting premium features and unique value propositions can drive engagement and loyalty for less price-sensitive segments. Analysis across thousands of brands reveals a consistent pattern: Maintaining brand equity enables brands to maintain or reduce price sensitivity. Increases in consumer price sensitivity due to cuts in brand building and increases in promotional activities to combat price sensitivity can be expensive.  They can also be costly to the brand over the long term and, in some cases, unrecoverable.

Dynamic War Gaming in a Volatile Landscape

In periods of economic disruption, speed becomes a competitive advantage. The ability to quickly measure evolving drivers of change in business performance, develop a ‘Next Best Action’ response plan, driving implementation within days is a competitive advantage during times of uncertainty. This means gaining alignment across marketing, finance, operations, and relevant parts of the supply chain.

Brands with holistic Unified Measurement Capabilities incorporating cross-department feedback are advantaged as they proactively move in an informed, coordinated manner. But the true advantage comes from the speed at which a brand can measure an in-market signal, simulate the impact of a planned adjustment, and effectively manage implementation in a way that aligns to the changing marketplace dynamics.

Navigating shifting economic conditions requires flexibility in budgeting, scenario planning, and targeting tools. By reallocating resources dynamically based on changing, real-time market data and creating feedback loops informed by in-market responses, brands can protect against adverse impacts while acting on emerging opportunities and potential risks.

Ipsos MMA research shows agile marketing strategies allow brands to adapt 12% faster to economic changes, improving market performance. In addition, Ipsos MMA captures marketplace data signals that dynamically track changes in the market calibrating them to potential shifts in demand.  This enables clients to assess and act in real-time to the ebb and flow of times of crisis.

Turning Tariff Challenges into Strategic Advantage

The new and evolving tariff reality presents challenges and risks for brands. Enterprises with the tools and knowledge to proactively act quickly to capitalize on the marketplace adversity will be advantaged.

Measurement-Driven Reallocation: Shift from across-the-board cuts to precision reallocation with a focus on maximizing efficient reach and frequency based on unified measurement that identifies the role and value of each marketing investment by objective, audience, time period, and market condition.

Brand-Performance Balance: Maintain strategic brand investment while optimizing performance channels, recognizing that performance marketing effectiveness and pricing power depend on continued brand equity.

Speed to Action: Be able to quickly identify the “What?, So What?, Now What?” through the use of unified measurement and in-market demand signals enables cross-functional decision makers to compress insight-to-action cycles and create advantages over competitors still relying on traditional reporting systems.

While the tariff actions have raised global concerns, it is not a time to put one’s head in the sand. Cross-functional executives and teams that establish war rooms and scenario war gaming, implement rapid measurement capabilities, and develop scenario-based playbooks will position themselves to capitalize on competitor hesitation during this period of market recalibration.

Companies that successfully execute these strategies don’t just protect margins during economic uncertainty—they emerge with strengthened brand and market positions that persist long after the crisis impacts stabilize. Companies can transform today’s tariff challenges into tomorrow’s competitive advantage by focusing on measurement-driven decisions, maintaining strategic brand investments, and accelerating response times.

Patrick Cummings                      Doug Brooks

Chief Executive Officer            Chief Client Officer