Ever since WHO announced Covid-19 a pandemic, our minds have been hijacked by health, hygiene, safety related thoughts, news, content. There has barely been any place for other thoughts. Survival has rightly became the main concern. Now, who is going to think of marketing during Covid-19? Not me (Truly, I didn’t… initially, at least)!
From our various locations on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, all of us have been subconsciously migrating back towards the first 2 levels i.e. Physiological Needs and Safety Needs.
But with every passing week, we are getting used to living with Covid-19. It is here to stay for the foreseeable future. And as the world takes slow steps towards normalcy, we marketers must figure out and strategize about marketing during Covid-19. There is a stark difference between the BC Era (Before Coronavirus) and the AC Era (After Coronavirus) across both, our personal lives and work lives. And we need to start getting ready to adapt and roll with these changes.
Henceforth, our work lives are going to be far more intertwined with our personal lives. This is going to impact every work decision- be it in marketing, finance, HR or other areas. In all aspects, we are going back to the basics. For example, within marketing, in the BC Era, our advertisements were largely focused on creating aspirations, building community or were purpose led. But in the AC Era, most ads have reverted to the basics of product features and benefits.
That is why, even the epitome of aspirational advertisers like savvy luxury hotels, are not promoting their hotels as “luxurious or dream holidays” but are instead portraying their hotel rooms as “luxurious quarantine spaces” or “peaceful remote working rooms”.
So this background begs the question “What changes should we marketers prepare for in the AC Era?“ The changes will be led by changed customer mindset and expectations.
8 Impactful Customer Mindset Changes
1. Few wants, more needs: Conservative Spending
People have indeed started spending only on need fulfillment i.e. only on products or services that fulfill their health, hygiene and safety needs. Madovermarketing got it right when they shared the Instagram post above. Wants have taken a backseat. This conservative spending is not going away anytime soon because of mass layoffs, salary cuts, business shutdowns, etc.
2. Reassure me and give me peace of mind: Hygiene and health mindset
Pretty wild how we used to eat cake after someone had just blown air from their mouth onto it
— Eric Schmidt (@TalkingSchmidt) April 26, 2020
Customers are now looking at every product or service through a new lens, that of health and hygiene. Even for services traditionally not linked to hygiene, like home delivery or for products like pizza or events like parties, they want hygiene assurance. They will not be satisfied with empty words from you touting these two features. They want an explanation, a peek into your back end, to feel the reassurance. Only then will they bless you with their confidence.
3. Cut the faff please: Focus on fundamentals
In the BC Era, most brands faced stiff competition with barely any noticeable differentiation. Their solution was to appeal to the emotional side of consumers by using popular themes like ‘Female Empowerment/ Femvertising’, environment friendly and similar others. Often, this was used even when it had barely any connection to the offering. This is the faff customers do not want in the AC Era. They want you to give them the straight talk i.e. what is your offering, how does it address their current emotional climate and physical needs and why should they buy from you.
4. Buy local, be local, stay local
The way ahead lies in LOCAL.
Local Manufacturing.
Local Markets.
Local Supply Chain.
Local is not merely a need but a responsibility.
Be vocal about local! #AatmanirbharBharat pic.twitter.com/eYqt5IDtBp
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 12, 2020
Even before the speech by PM Modi on Buying Local or ‘Aatmanirbhar’, closing of international borders taught customers a valuable lesson. They realized how dependent they were on other countries to fulfill many critical needs. Also, in times of dire need, it were local business leaders and companies who rose to the occasion such as Ratan Tata, Mahindra and Mahindra, Wockhardt, to name a few. Their generosity and patriotism is another reason why people want to reciprocate by buying and supporting such local or Made In India brands.
5. Were you a good brand? Show me the proof
—To help in the response to this unprecedented threat, we at the Mahindra Group will immediately begin work on how our manufacturing facilities can make ventilators.
—At Mahindra Holidays, we stand ready to offer our resorts as temporary care facilities. (3/5)— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) March 22, 2020
Covid-19 helped separate the ‘Good’ brands from the ‘Fake Good’ brands. ‘Good’ brands rose up to the challenge, went out of their way to help the community during the crisis, even at a financial cost to themselves.
E.g. the Tata Sons and Tata Trust donated Rs. 1500 crores, Mahindra offered its resorts for use as quarantine facilities or hospitals, Shah Rukh Khan (a personal brand) gave the use of his private office building for quarantining patients, Hindustan Unilever donated Rs. 100 crores along with its cleaning and hygiene products, many many other brands started using their factories to make products most needed by GOI to fight against Coronavirus.
These are just some of the initiatives undertaken by these ‘Good’ brands. Consumers are smart. They can distinguish the genuine brands from those who are either tone deaf (pushing their wares as if it is business as usual) or just give lip service to community service (“we care, we hope you are well, blah blah” but nothing beyond that).
Guess who the customer will gravitate towards and trust more in the AC Era?
6. I am not a loner. Tell me ‘What’s in it for US?’
Everyone reconnected with their families, friends and colleagues on an emotional level during lockdown. People realized what they were missing out on in the BC Era. That is why the insane popularity of Zoom, Whatsapp games and quizzes, group games like Psych, other similar bonding tools. They are now keen to continue this revival of social relationships.
Hence, they are interested in how your product or service can help them stay connected with or involve their extended family, friends, colleagues? Instead of answering ‘What’s in it for ME?’ they would appreciate you answering ‘What’s in it for US?’
7. I am social but I am anti-socializing
In the AC Era, most people will be wary of large crowds, gatherings or events like launches, conferences, concerts, etc. They would prefer a smaller, intimate gathering or a virtual one instead. And you need to adapt to this hesitation, if you want them to participate.
8. Can you come to my doorstep? Preference for ‘@home’ deliveries/ services
Being forced by the lockdown to stay home, people have gotten habituated to ordering online or getting home deliveries even from offline stores, more than ever before. They appreciate the convenience and are going to expect this going forward. And this expectation will extend even to hitherto offline services/ products.
With 4 billion internet users globally and with 51 percent of digital commerce executed now via mobile device in 2020, brands are looking toward innovation and connectivity to save themselves. With the restrictions on physical shopping, e-commerce is expected to grow by 694 percent this year, while store-based activity will likely suffer up to -86 percent
Luxury Society
Basis these mindset changes, what strategies can we create or adopt for marketing during Covid-19?
Strategies for Marketing during Covid-19
1. Re-skill
Irrespective of your industry, you likely would be facing budget constraints, demand dip, supply problems, salary issues and more. In such a scenario, to continue marketing during Covid-19, you would need to re-skill yourself and the team. Technological proficiency will be needed to work, meet, confer remotely, to do product launches for consumers/ dealers/ press virtually or to hold large scale sales conferences, shoot and edit ads and videos remotely, among others.
Besides this, you would need to do more marketing jobs in-house due to budget cuts, agency layoffs, deferred agency payments and the like. Writing content, creating digital assets like ebooks, social media posts, translations, organizing events are examples of jobs you may end up doing in-house. Hence, the need for re-skilling and up-skilling
2. Reduce/ Re-allocate
You may need to reduce the total amount you spend on advertising or you may have to reallocate spends between media. For instance, with fewer people being out of home, you may want to shift the OOH monies towards online marketing.
3. Reuse/ Repurpose assets, save costs
Burger King Offers Free Whoppers for Those Who Use Its Billboards as Zoom Backgrounds
Adweek
At the start of lockdown, Burger King made a very smart move. All their OOH assets were getting wasted with everyone staying off the roads. To ensure those assets got enough eyeballs, they announced a special offer- Use the Burger King hoarding as your Zoom background during Zoom calls/ meetings/ chats; Tweet the screenshot to Burger King, get a free Whopper code through the app, redeem offline.
Why was this such a smart move? Because it was repurposing of existing assets. They got additional free content generated by users, their billboard investment didn’t go waste and they got offline footfalls. You can try such repurposing of media and content assets already created by you. Thus, save cost, time and effort while staying fresh in your customer’s minds.
4. Recycle- Adapt current assets to newer expectations
Amsterdam-based hotel Zoku transforms its rooms into hideaway offices for at-home workers
Covidinnovations.com
As we mentioned earlier, consumers are looking for health, hygiene and safety parameters in every product/ service. Wherever possible, you could try introducing those in your offering. If that is not possible or in the interest of time, if any of your existing product/ service features also give health/ hygiene benefit, you could rename it. You could highlight it in brochures, point of sale, website or through any other means of communication.
For example, if your washing machine has a hot water cycle and if the temperature warrants it, you could rename that cycle as the ‘Sanitize’ cycle. Put that on your washing machine control panel or at your point of sale. OR If you own a hotel, recycle your hotel rooms as remote working spaces.
5. Re-organize/ rearrange teams and agencies
Marketing budgets being a casualty of coronavirus pandemic, one of the ways to cope could be reorganizing your team and agencies. Maybe increase the duties of one, change the contract of another, handle something in-house. You could change the contract with your agency from that of a retainer to a project basis or to job basis via a rate card.
Your team could be shuffled such that one person could be tasked with figuring out how to reuse/ repurpose existing assets and reallocate media spends. This would ensure it gets the necessary focus.
6. Repair broken trust/ broken promises
If, for any reason, it was not possible for you to contribute to Covid-19 monetarily or in any other way, don’t despair. You can still get your name in the ‘Good’ brands list, gain customer favor by not being tone deaf, by not talking only about yourself.
You could use your ads, content and media for good by guiding customers on how to deal with the uncertainty and fear or to feel better mentally. You could help them navigate the return to normalcy. For example, if you are a consultancy, you could publish an e-book for your existing clients with well researched guidelines for how to resume work and how you could help them through it.
7. Reassure
In the AC Era, people want tangible proof of hygiene, health and safety from you. Reassure them and give them peace of mind by giving them a behind-the-scenes glimpse of all the measures you are taking to ensure these three parameters. Simply publishing or emailing customers about your cleaning schedule or hygiene measures may not be believable enough. See if you can give them live proof- for example, if you own a hotel, can you give the guest access to a live feed showing their room being sanitized and disinfected before they enter? They can choose to tune into the live feed or not, their choice.
8. Renew- Give your marketing a makeover
Renew your current marketing activities and give them a new avatar. The best way to do this is to break down your customer journey into micro steps or your marketing into micro elements. Thereafter figure out which of those steps goes against the new customer mindset of health and hygiene and hence, needs a makeover.
For instance, instead of giving face to face tours of your tourist hotspots, give live virtual tours OR instead of causing crowds to wait in front of rides at your theme park, allow people to book their spot on your app and reach the ride just before their turn is due (CNBC).
An underlying requirement across any renewal or remake is likely to be adoption of technology. Another reason for re-skilling/ up-skilling
So these were the 8 customer mindset changes and 8 strategies to try while marketing during Covid-19. What is your take on these? Would love to hear your thoughts.
You can download a handy summary of the article here.
Next up in the Covid-19 series is an article sharing 22 Effective Restaurant Marketing Ideas and Strategies.