Advertising alone can’t cheer people up. But advertisers could.

Generally the view of marketing and advertising is that it is a zero sum game. A nifty piece of advertising might steal a bit of brand share here and there, but at the expense of someone else’s sales. That’s the usual assumption. Today I’m not sure it’s true.

I think we are now in a position where we need to stimulate demand rather than merely redirecting it.

In some cases, marketers have already responded ingeniously to this problem. Hyundai in the US offers a kind of redundancy insurance with every purchase of a new car and under the banner of “We’re in this together” the car manufacturer offers to take back any new car for a full refund if the purchaser finds himself out of work in the 12 months after purchase. It’s an ingenious idea – after all, the reason people have stopped making major purchases is generally not because they are less well paid, nor because prices are high (there’s never been a better time to get a bargain) but because of uncertainty.