The Impact of the Great Recession on Financial Services Advertising: An Exploratory Study

ABSTRACTWe explore how advertising managers of financial services organizations have responded to the repercussions of the Great Recession in their advertising strategies. To this end, we compare print ads for financial services that appeared in six magazines at two periods in time: 2005, prior to the Great Recession and 2010, after the end of the Great Recession. We content analyzed 755 prints ads and found major differences in the advertising strategies from prerecession to postrecession, particularly in the type of appeals. We further examined these strategic shifts by audience focus (business-to-business and business-to-consumer) and gender focus (male, female, or both).