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As the tit-for-tat tariff fight between the U.S. and Mexico, Canada, China and the European Union continues, marketers are watching closely — and worrying.
The constant change has left marketers’ and agency execs’ heads spinning.
An IAB survey released last week of 100 U.S. marketers and agency execs found 57% were “extremely concerned” about the impact of tariffs on their businesses, while 37% were merely “somewhat” anxious. Those worries are clear to agency execs working with marketers.
“People are anxious about it,” said Christine Schrader, vp strategic innovation at media agency Wpromote. Schrader said her team has been exploring potential responses with clients, some of whom are considering “battening down the hatches” by cutting or shifting media spend. As such, the agency’s used internal media mix modeling to try and predict which media channels might provide the best opportunities for clients.
One agency holding company exec who asked to remain anonymous, citing client sensitivities, told Digiday they expected the tariffs to result in a reduction in ad spend — but that hinges on political outcomes.
“Any additional costs absorbed means a potential reduction in margin and therefore other areas of spend will be assessed for potential reduction. Marketing spend ends up in that bucket,” they said. “But there’s a way to go yet before we see those outcomes. The situation today is different to even a week ago so until it all calms down a bit, it will be hard to say whether there will be any impact at all.”
So far, marketers are wargaming, hypothesizing and modeling their next course of action — but holding off on choosing a response. “People are waiting to see how the jacks actually fall,” said Schrader.
While clients have been conditioned for patience through Covid and the first Trump presidency, she said the constant watchfulness is also wearing. “Every day there’s something crazy going on… there’s a bit of exhaustion, I think,” she said.
Unequal concerns
Amid this uncertainty, some clients are clearly more exposed than others. The E.U.’s tariff measures (laid out in a 99-page document, if you’re curious) explicitly targeted imports of motorcycles, turkeys and bras in a bid to hit the U.S. where it hurts most. And industries that rely on steel and aluminium, like automotive — which provides 13% of Publicis Groupe’s revenues, as of the holdco’s latest results — are also on the hook.
Meanwhile businesses affected by the recent “de minimis” rule change, which removed a tax exemption on imports, including many DTC companies, will also be hit directly. The latter group includes major advertisers such as Shein and Temu.
Others will be concerned with the broader impact on consumer spending should prices rise.
91% of U.S. shoppers expect to change their buying habits in response to the tariffs, either buying U.S.-made goods (30.5%) or bargain-hunting (41.1%), according to a February survey carried out by Numerator. Another survey conducted by CivicScience suggested 76% of American consumers would change their shopping habits should prices spike.
While Wpromote’s clientele of CPG and retail brands are actively considering their next steps, others can afford to wait and see.
Digital agency Gather’s roster is made up of financial services, insurance and service-as-software firms. Partner and head of innovation Dave Gaspar, said its clients haven’t yet come to the agency for advice on the tariff situation, though should the tariffs cause major shifts in consumer spending in the medium to long-term, that could change.
“If there’s an effect [on] consumer spending, there will be a subsequent effect to financial services companies,” he said.
Panic, as yet, isn’t the order of the day. Canadian-headquartered multinational McCain Foods, for example, pushed ahead last week on a global brand campaign that emphasized sustainable farming techniques despite the threat of tariffs.
“It didn’t really affect the planning of the campaign, if I’m being honest,” said McCain Foods’ CMO, Christine Kalvenes.
“There’s a temptation as industry insiders to overreact to news that hasn’t like filtered down to everyday purchase patterns. I think it’s going to be very important to keep our fingers on the pulse,” added Gartner analyst Andrew Frank.
Holding the line
What would a reaction actually look like? Well, for brand marketers working on brands affected directly by tariff rises, there’s a relatively straightforward playbook available, authored through experience of recession, pandemic and past political upsets.
In essence, they can spend through the uncertainty and hope a greater store of brand equity will see them through — or pull investments and hunker down.
Schrader noted not all Wpromote clients were modelling retreats; one luxury retailer asked the agency to help prepare an upper-funnel focused response. The disruption was “an opportunity to future-proof,” their business, she said. Schrader didn’t name the client.
“It is a time when you can start to establish more differentiation and more consumer loyalty,” said Frank. “But there will certainly be a large contingent that just does the ‘natural’ thing, which is to cut media budgets and streak them down to the most performant channels that you can find.”
“Volatility tends to favor more performance driven advertising channels,” Frank added, noting that media inventory that can be bought programmatically, and that can quickly scaled up or down as events shift and change — search or CTV, for example — might see a boost.
“Might,” however, is the operative word. “Nobody knows exactly how this is going to play out,” said Schrader.
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