Midcoast — What's in a bowl of Corn Flakes? Aside from providing the morning nutrition requisite to a successful day running your business, cereal can teach us a lesson about how to compete in touch economic times.

1929 marked the beginning of the Great Depression. Bank failures made the failures of the last few years seem relatively innocuous. Unemployment loomed at 25%, and every sector in the U.S. economy was adversely affected. But people still needed to eat. And the breakfast of choice for most Americans was "flakes and milk". The two largest manufacturers of breakfast cereal were Kellogg's and Post, and both had been neck and neck with U.S. market share, each vying for dominance in the cereal market.

Any idea who won? Kellogg's did. The reason: unlike their rival Post who decided to cut back on marketing expenditures, Kellogg's opted to increase spending, from the Great Depression's outset through to its end. Kellogg's made a calculated marketing decision to advertise and promote their products aggressively-namely Corn Flakes, despite the economic downturn. Their rationale was simple: In knee jerk fashion, their competitors had scaled back their marketing efforts significantly, thus opening the door for Kellogg's to blitz the market with a strong ad campaign designed to persuade consumers to Kelloggs' touted superior quality, thereby gaining them significant market share that positioned Kellogg's as the industry leader-which endures to this day.

Consumers don't stop spending or planning their expenditures when the economy is weak. And while it seems intuitively obvious to reduce spending when demand wanes, the exact opposite is the strategy that should be pursued. For one thing, advertising dollars stretch further if fewer competitors are advertising. We should ask ourselves “When will we have a competitive advantage such as this again?” to give us the courage to both leverage our marketing dollars and win market share.

One of the facts of life for those of us who live in a state tucked all the way up in the northeastern corner of the United States is that we really are in no position to sit back and wait for the world to come to us. We need to do two things instead: support each other and find ways to talk to folks beyond the horizon.

Previous generations certainly understood this and used this knowledge to build a fine economy, as is evidenced by the elegant sea captains’ homes and lumber barons’ mansions that line both ocean front and river roads throughout Maine. Given the tough recovery the state and national economies are currently enduring I certainly understand the temptation to turn away from the somewhat frightening prospect that our future prosperity will be dictated beyond our own borders and become an introverted, protectionist, and ever-more homogeneous place. That being said, the quicker we unroll from the fetal position and instead stand tall in the local, national, and global marketplaces the more able we will be to both thrive economically and protect our justifiably vaunted quality of life.

Given all of this, in order to succeed we need to get proactive in promoting what we have to offer, be it as individual businesses or collectively as a region. Advertising- in all its forms- works, as does press outreach, PR efforts, and working with your local Chamber.

We have a choice. We can do nothing and leave our future to fate. Or we can seize the future in our own hands and be like Kellogg’s. And that’s not a flaky idea.