Last week Dr Pepper Snapple Group announced its fourth quarter earnings. Results were mixed, with a steep, 17 percent decline in Snapple sales offset by healthy growth of Hawaiian Punch. But it was a comment made by Larry Young, CEO of Dr Pepper Snapple Group, on a conference call with analysts that particularly caught my attention. He said, “Even though the majority of Americans are still working, the fear factor that has gripped the nation is having a significant impact on consumer psychology.”

Everyone knows we’re not ourselves lately, at least in terms of our buying behavior. We may not be as cognizant, however, that the “fear factor” is as true in business as it is in the consumer marketplace. In When Growth Stalls, I point out the debilitating effect a loss of nerve can have on struggling companies.

To be sure, in this environment it’s fair game to question everything your company is doing. But if that questioning leads you to freeze in your tracks, unsure of what to do, it can actually make your problems worse. It’s difficult not to be frightened by what may lie ahead, but hope alone won’t make things better. And the sooner each of us acts, the more all of us will benefit.

I’ve never been a fan of discounting. Quite the opposite, in fact. The best way to lose hard-won brand equity is by giving it away. Still, when times get tough it’s hard to dismiss the pricing part of your brand equation.

That’s why I think Staples’ used ink cartridge strategy is smart. When Fortune’s Three Minute Manager panel posed the question, “Should I focus on lower prices or on new products?” to Ron Sargent, Staples’ CEO, here’s how he explained his approach: “We recently started offering $3 coupons for empty ink cartridges. We already commanded a healthy share of the ink business, but it’s grown. By offering more value, we were able to expand our market share.”

Staples found a way to offer a valuable discount that doesn’t reflect poorly on its brand, because it requires something from the consumer in return. And it makes Staples appear to be a better corporate citizen to boot. Smart.

In my professional travels I always like to note what kind of wireless devices the people I come into contact with are using. Being a marketer, I naturally gravitated toward the iPhone, while many of the sales professionals, financial wizards and engineering types I come across are Palm or Blackberry addicts.

I saw an article the other day about new programs Microsoft is putting into place to help its Windows Mobile operating system compete with the likes of Palm and Apple. It got me thinking of the interesting race left-brain companies like Microsoft and Blackberry are having with their right brain competitors like Apple. It’s almost as if each is starting from a different end of the field to see who can cross the 50 yard-line line first.

The left-brainers have a great start in the business world, with their fast functionality, easy email, and no-nonsense interfaces. The right-brainers dominate the consumer side with their gaming, social networking and music applications. Both recognize the tremendous market share at stake in their race to the middle. While Microsoft is placing much greater emphasis on music, photos and multimedia, Apple is running ads that say, “Making business trips feel less like work, one app at a time.”

This will be a continually evolving dynamic that will be fun to keep an eye on, and all of us smartphone users will be the beneficiaries.

Speaking of niches (see “Unfazed by Economy” below), I was struck by the results of a recent study by the Zogby organization. They posed a simple question to consumers: If you could only shop at one department store for the rest of your life, which store would you choose?

It’s not surprising that Wal-Mart (26%) and Target (22%) topped the list, particularly given current economic conditions. But if you look a little deeper into the data, interesting patterns emerge. For example, Both Wal-Mart and Target compete in the discount retail category. But Wal-Mart loyalists tend to have lower incomes, are less educated and travel less than Target customers. Wal-Mart shoppers favored McCain. Target shoppers chose Obama.

Costco loyalists look more like Target shoppers in terms of income, travel profile and political views. As Zogby says, “Costco is the Wal-Mart alternative for Democrats.” By contrast, Sears might be described as “the Target alternative for Republicans.” Its shoppers are older, and more conservative, and even more likely than Wal-Mart customers to be homeowners and gun owners. They’re also more likely to be men (as opposed to JC Penney loyalists, who tend to be female).

My point isn’t to suggest that these retailers should build their appeal around simple dimensions such as age, income, political leanings or travel habits. (The Zogby poll didn’t go into the breadth or depth that a true brand identity exploration would). But the poll does reveal how people’s varying preferences lead them to naturally gravitate to one brand over another–even in somewhat commoditized categories. There’s not a brand on the planet that can’t leverage that powerful truth.

It may sound counterintuitive, but when growth stalls your response shouldn’t be to broaden your appeal, but to narrow your focus.

Unfazed? Yep. That’s the headline from an Advertising Age report about Mini, the little car company that could. Not only did Mini increase its market share in 2008, according to the magazine, “Mini USA was one of only two auto brands to tally year-over-year sales increases in the U.S. last year (the other was Subaru of America).”

Obviously, Mini and Subaru know something other automakers don’t, and it’s reflected in a quotation attributed to an auto industry consultant buried deeper in the article: “The good news for the niche brand…is it doesn’t have to reach the mass market, so it can focus its marketing very tightly to its target.”

Sticking closely to a well-defined niche is the key to success that both Mini and Subaru have used over the course of many years. But my question is this: why haven’t all the other automakers done the same? To be sure, there are other good examples of well-focused car brands, but there are others that seem to confuse the present with the past. There is no “mass market.” Not anymore.

It’s easy, of course, to point a finger at the troubled automakers. But the question extends to your company and mine as well: how focused are our brands? At a time when it’s more difficult than ever to drive the top line, it’s a good question to ponder.

Jonathan Henes is a corporate attorney who shepherded Wellman, a billion-dollar company that makes resins for plastic soda bottles, through its recent bankruptcy. Wellman ran into trouble more than a year ago as the economy began to slow down, finding that it couldn’t manage nearly $600 million in debt that dwarfed earnings by more than twenty times. It was an organization that, financially speaking, was upside down.

Thanks in part to Henes’ counsel, Wellman made it through its trial by fire. Much leaner now, the company will reach only $500 million in sales this year, but has much less debt and looks as if it will generate healthy earnings. In order to survive, the company had to get rid of two of its three manufacturing facilities and secure capital from new investors. Speaking of Wellman’s journey, Henes says, “I think in this era you need to shrink down to just your very best businesses. You need to just focus on your core strength and make the painful, hard decisions.”

For a time, it looked like that was what Starbucks was prepared to do as it faced its own growth crisis. Responding to the effects of the economic slowdown on Starbucks’ sales, in early March Starbucks’ CEO Howard Shultz said, “The issue at hand…is the cost of losing your core customer. It’s very hard to get them back.”

He’s right about that, of course, but that’s why his comment at the company’s annual meeting last week sounded odd to me. “Starbucks has got to demonstrate to our customers and the marketplace that we can still be a premium brand and create a premium experience,” he said, “and at the same time create a platform for value” (emphasis added).

Do you know what “a platform for value” means? Neither do I, and that’s what scares me. When companies start using the “V” word it usually means they’re going to start discounting more and cash in their hard-earned brand equity via sales promotions. That’s a natural (if unwise) reaction to trying to retain core customers, but it’s no way to protect “a premium experience.”

It makes me wonder if Starbucks is having an identity crisis, an element of the Loss of Nerve phenomenon I describe in When Growth Stalls. We’ll watch and wait.

Dell has just launched a new, ultra-thin laptop with a base price of $1,999. It’s sleek. It’s slick. They call it a “luxury laptop,” and John New, director of consumer marketing at Dell, says, “We’re focusing on the fashion.”

Knowing Dell, it’s probably a great product. It’s also a great example of a loss of focus. The Dell brand was built on being quick, dependable, customizable, and affordable. Now it’s about sleek and luxurious too. The company once specialized in serving corporate customers. Now it specializes in the consumer market too. And data centers. And families. And the direct channel. And retail. Oh, and televisions. Did I mention digital cameras? Phones? MP3 players?

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always been a fan of Dell. But it’s hard to see how a company that used to parallel, say, Toyota, in terms of its product breadth and reliability, can succeed by emulating GM. Not only will the company be hard pressed to maintain leadership in any one product category (let alone several), its identity is getting fuzzier by the day.

I’m not sure what Dell stands for anymore. Trying to be all things to all people usually results in being nothing to no one. Sometimes you can stretch a brand so far it rips.

Has anyone noticed how rapidly the applications for the Apple iPhone proliferate? Business, education, entertainment, games, medicine, music, news, reference, sports, travel, weather–every day there are more and more options, many of them free. Some are quite remarkable.

To me, however, the most remarkable thing is Apple’s approach to iPhone app development. Remember, this was the company that steadfastly refused to license its Macintosh operating system dating back to the 1980s, ceding massive market share to cloned Windows-based PCs. Debate will rage on forever as to whether or not that was a wise decision, but clearly Steve Jobs & Co. was paying attention.

The increasingly competitive smart phone race (Google’s new G1 phone uses the open-standard Android operating system) is making the PC wars look quaint by comparison. By facilitating independent developers’ application development, Apple is more likely to keep the iPhone’s features and functionality current.

Apple wisely recognized that we now live in an open-source world, and has found a way to thrive in it. Smart phone, smart company.

Neiman Marcus is a powerful case study of how consistency pays off over time. The brand is among the most famous names in luxury retailing and has survived more than one recession with its focus intact. The company is dealing with perhaps its biggest challenge to date in this economy, but is rising to the occasion again.

Neiman’s longtime CEO, Burt Tansky, demonstrated his resolve last week by telling shareholders, “Full-price selling is what we are concerning ourselves with.” Does Tansky have his head in the sand? Not at all. Neiman Marcus has felt the full effects of significant and sustained consumer belt-tightening, which has hit the luxury sector particularly hard—sales at the famous retailer are down more than 20%. But instead of resorting to lazy, equity-burning discounting, Neiman Marcus is working hard with its designers and suppliers around the world to offer more for less.

Tansky and his team have maintained their commitment to bring fashion-forward, high-end merchandise to their loyal clientele, while taking some of the edge off of the more ostentatious prices. “We have to get the customer to buy [at] full-price,” says Vice President Rachel Golberger. “If you offer the value up front, you won’t get this discounting nonsense.”

Neiman Marcus is standing strong behind its belief that taking the long view is what counts. Here’s hoping—and believing—they will succeed.

Jason Zweig writes the Intelligent Investor column for the Wall Street Journal. His Saturday contribution oddly echoed a query I received the prior Thursday during a speaking engagement in New York. Referencing the “Loss of Nerve” principle in When Growth Stalls, my questioner wanted to know if it was prudent to conserve all the cash he could during the economic downturn. My answer to him was “not necessarily,” a thought reinforced by Zweig’s column.

“While many financial companies are thirsting for cash,” Zweig says, “there’s an even bigger group of businesses drowning in the stuff—to the detriment of their shareholders.” Citing Goldman Sachs research that found non-financial S&P; 500 companies have over $800 billion in cash and liquid securities on hand, Zweig said, “Squirreling away cash is almost as bad a frittering it away. The returns on idle cash are lousy, and putting cash to productive use is one of management’s central obligations to shareholders.”

He’s right. Zweig says research from the University of British Columbia shows that stocks with the biggest cash hoards have actually underperformed those with the least amount of extra cash. That is consistent with the behavior my research revealed at stalled companies—a fear-driven pullback on the reins of innovation and marketing. It’s a malady that keeps many companies stuck in their funk, some of which never recover.

While hunkering down is a natural response to a tectonic event, there comes a time after the shaking stops to get up and get on with life. Whatever shape your house may be in, it won’t repair itself. Somebody has to reinforce the walls and re-shingle the roof, both of which require resources.

“Many big companies are being too cautious with their cash by any measure of prudence,” Zweig says. Are you?