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Economic downturns are frightening. Consumers curb spending, companies cut costs, and we all wait anxiously for the economy to recover. In such a climate, launching a product — an expensive and uncertain endeavour in the best of times — would seem to make little sense. But a new study finds that products launched during recessions outperform on several important measures.
The researchers explored three questions: how do products introduced during recessions perform relative to ones launched during booms? Does the severity of the recession affect performance? And does the timing within the recession matter? They analysed 8,981 product launches in the UK in 20 fast-moving consumer goods categories from 1995 to 2012, along with 1,071 product launches in the U.S.
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