COVID-19 has reshaped the past couple of weeks. While the global order has seen a major disruption, brands have tuned their marketing to a different tone altogether. Now, with their regular campaigns on hold, brands are focusing on posts that ‘educate,’ lets them stay visible and relevant by expressing solidarity with consumers.
Early days of Corona marketing
Multiple cleanliness and hygiene brands stepped up during the early days with warnings, advisories and even campaigns on how to prevent the spread of the virus. Dettol’s handwash, Savlon, Lifebuoy, and others insisted that everyone know the handwashing etiquettes. These brands created a behavior change and awareness among the audience in the early days of the spread of the virus.
Strategy during the pandemic
A lot of cancellations and physical area closures have gotten brands to a halt. While it might be tempting to rein in the spending of the brand’s marketing budget amid concerns about an impending recession, indecisive and stopping spending now could have an even more crippling impact on your future opportunities. Collectively, marketers should divert and pivot their current strategy. It would certainly be tone-deaf to run a campaign about a festival which would have seemed relevant 3 weeks back.
Marketers should call upon their trusted sponsors and partners with a relevant strategy instead. For eg, Greenroom has been working closely with our clients to respond appropriately to coronavirus concerns and make strategic adjustments in their marketing messages and demand generation tactics.
Here are some brands that went over and above to fit their products and services to their customer’s need in these tough times.
Cult.fit
Fitness startup Cult.fit announced early March that its centers will be closed and gave their customers free extension in their membership package. The brand said that it is going online with cult.live. So, now the content is not only available for Cult members but for non-members too from the comfort of their homes. The online classes will be available across formats like strength and conditioning, HRX, yoga and even dance fitness.
Google’s Sundar Pichai has used his social media handles to convey his company’s efforts at fighting the crisis. “We want to help businesses and schools impacted by COVID-19 stay connected: starting this week, we’ll roll out free access to our advanced Hangouts Meet video-conferencing capabilities through July 1, 2020 to all G Suite customers globally,” he wrote.
A lot of companies have offered to extend/give free access to their members during the lockdown time.
IKEA
IKEA came up with this fun IKEA “instructionized” poster to educate everyone about staying home.
“It’s really not complicated – just stay home.” IKEA Israel. pic.twitter.com/XSMfTmgQUT — Nathalie Rothschild (@n_rothschild) March 25, 2020
Fevicol
The adhesive brand Fevicol, started a conversation by sending out an opposite message from the usual – social distancing as a precautionary measure during the outbreak in order.
Social distancing made simple #CoronaVirus #FevicolKaJod #MazbootJod pic.twitter.com/wf8WF9TxmE — Fevicol (@StuckByFevicol) March 17, 2020
Conosh, Bangalore
Even the social startup Conosh, which encourages meeting everyone and stepping out in the city over good food has taken excellent
measures like live sessions on Instagram to keep their community alive and thriving.
LBB India
The brand promotes outdoor activities in some of the metro cities of the country. LBB has decided to completely revamp its daily content now by posting stay at home guides with recommendations for reading books, going on virtual museum tours, learning new skills and even recommending watch movies.
Amul
It is no surprise that Amul knocked it out of the park again with its traditional cartoon on social distancing.
NH7 Weekender
BACARDÍ NH7 Weekender and OML announced a series of online music festivals that will bring together artists across genres to live stream performances every weekend starting Friday 27th March.
Greenroom will be adding more over the next couple of weeks to the list of brands that have evolved their marketing strategies in this period. Do you know brands that have to be added to this list? Do let us know below in the comments section and start a conversation with us about which brand has helped you the most in these tough times. You can also visit our website, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram pages to reach out to us.
Comentários