Advertising in a downturn

Today I received an interesting article, it was talking about advertising in a downturn, this is the article that I was reading:

http://www.finditfast.co.zw/article/advertising-in-a-bad-economy.html

It is always interesting when you go out to companies in the same industry and find that they are so varied, some complain that there is no business while others, in the exact same industry, offering the same products and services, will tell you that business is on the rise.

What makes the difference? What is it that they are doing that completely changes the game for them?

After reading that article I thought I would have a quick look through a few more articles and see if this trend has been prominent or if it is just a few lucky companies that have benefited from advertising in a downturn.

Here is a brilliant article that I found that goes into the matter in more depth:

http://hbr.org/2009/04/how-to-market-in-a-downturn/ar/1 - This article is very good and suggests that by reducing your marketing during a downturn you could lose touch through not investing in researching your customers and finding out what their trends are and how to reach them.
"Extract" ---
"Think of your customers as falling into four groups:
The Slam on the Breaks segment. This group includes the hard hit, the unemployed – everyone whose world is upside down. The Pained by Patient segment. The authors call this the largest consumer group in the US right now. Economizing, cutting back, but still doing and going. Carefully investing in whatever they purchase. Probably really looking for bargains. The Comfortably Well Off cohort. Sure, this includes the upper 5%. But more importantly for the arts, this includes the carefully invested retirees who continue to have the resources to go to the arts. The Live for Today group. Hey, they never had any savings anyway, so why change?"

This is one of the best articles I have read on the importance and benefits of marketing in downturns.