If anyone ever goes on to a marketing job somewhere at some point in time (or goes back to school to study it, or sends kids to college to study it), here's info on why you want to INCREASE marketing spend during recessions:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2019/09/05/when-a-recession-comes-dont-stop-advertising/#19c073304608
https://www.asicentral.com/html/open/ProductsAndServices/supp/pdfs/Advertising_in_a_recession.pdf
Also...
Maybe FTD should knock it off with the "we're 100 years old!" thing. It screams OUTDATED in a market space where upstarts like Bloomnation can say they are nimbler in the current competitive environment than a 100 plus year old dinosaur.
Here's proof the top execs keep looking to the past instead of positioning the brand for the present and future:
https://www.builtinchicago.org/2018/08/31/jay-topper-ftd-companies-interview
"We were one of the top players..."
Read: We look to the past
"Getting back to those roots of being technology leaders is critical."
He's referring to the telegraph, which no one today thinks is anything cool and hip and progressive to re-aspire to. You get that that was not the literal point, to reinvent the telegraph for the future, but just pointing out that this is really lame commentary to be putting out there, a mention of the distant past. It's like saying to WIRED in the year 2020 that you were once the market leader in selling the abacus while your current competitors are promoting software like QuickBooks.
"When we get that foundation laid....that will enable us to draw on a lot of new technologies."
Translation: We're so not even close to being really being competitive as our competitors eat away at market share
Why would new members want to partner with you again? I'm sorry for coming across so critically (a bored MBTI "rational" temperament can't help it), but putting this...err...marketing (?) out there is lunacy. What's the value proposition? That we're long in the tooth but in the process of still trying to catch up with modernity??
I cringe