An airplane with its engines shut down does not crash immediately. It glides.
Then, sooner or later, it loses altitude. This striking metaphor, borrowed from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute study, perfectly illustrates the fate of brands that stop communicating.
Faced with the temptation to cut media budgets—usually to save money—a crucial question arises: can advertising investments be suspended without jeopardizing sales?
20 years of data, 70 brands,
The study, published in the Journal of Advertising Research, is based—for the first time ever—on two decades of observation in the Australian consumer goods sector. Of the 70 brands analyzed, 57 stopped all advertising for at least one year. The result: sales fell by an average of 16% after one year, 25% after two years, and more than 35% after three years.
The image of gliding takes on its full meaning here: the impact of a halt is not immediate, but it is almost systematic. Without advertising, the brand remains in the air… until it stalls.
But brands are unequal in the face of silence
Two factors in particular explain the differences in trajectories:
- Major brands are more resilient thanks to their reputation, widespread distribution, and well-established purchasing habits. They can stay afloat longer. Conversely, smaller brands fall quickly due to insufficient brand equity.
- Brands that were already in decline before the shutdown are accelerating their decline. Those that were stable are gradually eroding. And even growing brands are losing momentum—especially if they are small.
Simply reconnecting the motors is not sufficient.
The study also explores cases of brands that resume advertising after a one-year hiatus. The bad news is that restarting advertising does not always allow brands to regain lost ground. Momentum is lost, brand awareness is weakened, and distribution is sometimes compromised. It often takes more than a year of effort to hope to regain the momentum of before.
Key takeaways
The airplane metaphor is not just an image: it is a useful mental model for thinking about advertising effectiveness over time.
- Turning off the engines (advertising) saves money… in the short term.
- But the momentum is limited: without advertising, the brand is slowly but surely fading from people's minds.
- And the longer the interruption lasts, the more costly and uncertain the recovery becomes.
In a hyper-competitive world, advertising remains an essential driver of visibility, brand awareness, and commercial performance.