How Resilient Brands Are Winning in a Volatile Market
The return of aggressive tariff policy in 2025 is rattling executives across every sector, from manufacturing to retail to media. But while finance teams brace for margin pressure, marketing leaders are making a different kind of move: holding the line on ad spend or even increasing it.
It’s a strategy grounded in results, not risk. Pulling back on media may save budget today, but it sacrifices momentum, visibility, and competitive advantage. In uncertain times, it’s the steady brands that continue to invest in performance and awareness that emerge stronger.
Here’s why maintaining marketing should remain a non-negotiable line item in your 2025 strategy, even when tariffs squeeze everything else.
Tariffs Create Pressure. Advertising Creates Momentum.
When tariffs raise the cost of doing business, many executives instinctively look for expenses to cut. Marketing and advertising are often early targets. But that instinct may be short-sighted.
As MediaPost contributor Dave Morgan explains, uncertainty is worse than pessimism:
“If you don’t know what will happen, you tend to cut spending, not make commitments, and wait for more certainty… which might be a long time.”
Morgan’s point is clear. Advertising is an investment in the future, and uncertainty disrupts that investment. Brands that wait too long to re-engage lose momentum, while those that stay active are better positioned when the market stabilizes.
In other words, visibility is equity. And when competitors pull back, your share of voice rises, often at a lower cost.
Don’t Shrink, Shift
Let’s be clear: we’re not advocating reckless spending. We’re recommending strategic reallocation. Rising tariffs may force businesses to rethink pricing or operations, but that doesn’t mean your marketing should vanish. Instead, it’s time to shift spend to channels and strategies that deliver measurable ROI. This is where programmatic advertising, retail media, and connected TV shine.
As Adweek reports:
“Our data reveals that brands with more flexible media allocations saw up to a 41% improvement in marketing effectiveness over the past year.”
At Choozle, we’ve seen a marked increase in brands using our Outcomes-Based Advertising solution to track performance at every stage of the funnel. When the economy is unpredictable, you need advertising that adapts in real-time and delivers provable results.
The Opportunity: Lower Competition, Higher Impact
When others go quiet, your brand can speak louder.
Economic disruptions like tariff hikes often lead to reactive budget cuts. As advertisers pull back, competition for impressions drops, CPMs decline, and your media dollars go further. With less noise in the market, your message has more space to stand out.
Brands that continue to invest during periods of uncertainty often emerge stronger. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola took very different approaches. Coca-Cola paused much of its advertising. P&G ramped up its investment. The result? P&G gained market share and posted strong revenue growth, while Coke experienced losses and struggled to regain visibility.
Advertising as a Hedge Against Inflation
Tariffs often lead to higher prices, and with inflationary pressure already in play, brands must stay visible and relevant. If you’re raising prices or passing costs on to consumers, you must support that change with messaging.
That could be:
- Explaining value
- Reinforcing product quality
- Offering loyalty incentives
- Highlighting supply chain transparency
What you can’t do is go silent, as Forbes highlighted:
“Inflation not only impacts consumer purchasing power but also intensifies competition among brands vying for customer loyalty.”
Tariffs may be unavoidable, but declining brand favorability and lost customer engagement are not. Staying visible when others pull back can be your biggest competitive edge.
Smart Spending Beats Budget Cuts
Here’s how leading advertisers are approaching this moment:
1. Focus on High-Intent Audiences
Use predictive signals like purchase behavior, geo-targeting, or contextual relevance to reach users who are more likely to convert—even if they haven’t visited your site.
2. Use Audience Data Intelligently
Leverage first-party data to build lookalike audiences or custom segments based on your most valuable customers. This improves targeting precision and media efficiency.
3. Plan in 30-Day Sprints
Forecast and adjust budgets in shorter cycles based on performance and shifting business conditions. This keeps your strategy agile without overcommitting to uncertain forecasts.
4. Invest in Creative Optimization
Refresh your creative regularly to reflect current sentiment and market conditions. A small update in messaging or visuals can drive a major lift in engagement and conversion.
5. Tie Media Directly to Business Goals
Optimize campaigns around real outcomes like return on ad spend, customer acquisition cost, or lifetime value. Every dollar should support a measurable objective that contributes to growth.
Choozle’s Take
We get it—tariffs are stressful. But the right media strategy gives you control, not chaos.
With Choozle, you get:
- Omnichannel campaign management across display, CTV, video, search, social, and more.
- Transparent reporting, including real-time insights on cost and performance.
- Full control or hands-on support, depending on your team’s needs.
We built our platform for agility. And right now, that’s the one advantage you can’t afford to miss.
The Bottom Line
Tariffs are creating turbulence, but they don’t have to stall your growth.
In fact, this could be the window your brand needs to stand out, grab share, and outpace competitors who choose to hide.
Cutting spend may feel safe. But smart spending is strategic. If you want to grow, keep your voice in the market. Tariffs may raise costs, but retreating from your customers could cost far more.
Want to thrive when others pull back?
Book a demo and see how Choozle helps you spend smarter, scale faster, and stay relevant, no matter what the economy throws your way.
Adam Woods
Adam Woods is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and held two other roles at Choozle, including Chief Client Officer and Chief Technology Officer. Throughout his tenure at Choozle, he has been improving the way that advertisers buy media through the Choozle platform. He has led initiatives to ensure that Choozle leads the space in terms of being a consultative partner that helps ensure the effective deployment of media through a combination of omni-channel planning, targeting best practices, upfront goal setting, and effective measurement.
