Another USPS postage increase is here. For direct mail marketers, the immediate concern is not simply that every piece will cost more. It is that plans made months ago may no longer work as expected. Direct mail programs are rarely planned one campaign at a time. Annual budgets, mailing volumes, testing strategies, production schedules, and revenue forecasts are often established well in advance. When postage changes during that planning cycle, the effects can ripple through the entire program. A budget that once supported twelve campaigns may now support only eleven. A carefully designed test may need to be reduced. An acquisition campaign may face a higher cost per response before the first piece enters the mail. That is why the most useful question after a postage increase is not simply, “Should we mail less?” It is: “How do we protect the plan?”

Speculation is growing that Hudson News, a staple of airports and other transit hubs, might stop carrying magazines in the Tri-State Area — a scenario that one panicked publisher likened to “an asteroid killing off the dinosaurs.” Publishers’ fears were sparked after Hudson News Distributors — the James Cohen-owned distribution arm of Hudson News — informed the New Jersey Department of Labor in mid-December that it was laying off 236 employees in its Parsippany, NJ, headquarters, a filing reviewed by The Post showed. Cohen’s company is slated to cease distributing mags on Feb. 7, a source with knowledge of the matter told The Post on Friday. That means glossies will no longer be available in various Hudson News locations in the Tri-State Area — including at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark airports — barring intervention from an outside party.

What’s that sound you hear? It’s marketers gritting their teeth as they’re being asked to give up their precious advertising dollars to help insulate their brands from the looming recession. Or you may have heard the marketers or agencies say “Let’s only focus on hardworking media,” which typically means lower-funnel, digital-only, highly targeted, easily measurable, promotional campaigns designed to boost short-term sales and eliminate “waste.” They’re all part of the marketer’s recession playbook. But should they be? In reality, we should all consider a different path forward: Now is an opportune timeto shore up brand awareness and loyalty by increasing media investments with brand-building, mass-reaching, highly creative advertising campaigns.