Activating the Marketing Multiplier

Accelerating the economy by using the existing market system and generating a marketing multiplier is not only reasonable but also a necessary activity in poor economic times. When our economy experienced the greatest recession of modern times, the government bailed out the auto industry, the housing industry, and Wall Street. The government took much criticism for these unquestionably necessary bailout activities. However, this was less than adequate to get the economy really going. It was necessary to stimulate the economy further. Bailing out some industries to eliminate part of the damage caused by the recession may have helped, but what was truly needed here was to activate marketing multipliers. As discussed earlier (chapter 5), stimulating innovation activity would create a major marketing multiplier. But this is a time consuming and a risky activity, with the limited funds available in the private sector, reduced research and development funds (R&D) coming from the government. These indicate that left alone, the market economy will not make progress here. There may be other marketing multipliers that may yield faster and more positive results.