MUMBAI: Advertising agencies and brand marketers have been foxed by the continuing lockdown courtesy COVID-19. What should they communicate during the pandemic which is a constant moving target without a clear end-date?
Follow Tellychakkar for the consumer facing news & entertainment
To get answers to some of the doubts that advertisers have in these uncertain times, the Advertising Club, Bangalore live-streamed a webinar earlier on 22 April which had ad agency Motivator India head strategy and integrated solutions (south) Sumant Bhattacharya and Motivator India strategy head Upali Nag Kumar sharing their insights.
The duo stated that like every other event that has a wide impact, COVID2019 should be studied by breaking down it into three parts: outbreak, recovery and stabilisation.
They insisted that advertisers should not be working with a short-term view but seek long-term benefits from their communication. The consumer, today, is looking for reassurance and it is the advertisers’ responsibility to do that without plugging in sales pitches for their products.
Elaborating more on the outbreak phase of the situation, Bhattacharya said that brands need to be agile in their approach. “Even as you cut back on spends, you should continue to have enough communication to stay connected with customers. You should be contextual in your communication like if doubling of cases is happening, as in the case of the novel coronavirus, you should ride it. You must rebuild assurance in the minds of consumers, be empathetic with them, and don’t sell the product to them.”
He added that brands can collaborate with peers to make services easier to access by the consumers by citing examples of short film ‘Family’ starring biggies like Amitabh Bachchan, and Swiggy’s partnership with Big Basket and Venky’s.
Taking congisance of what’s happening in the case of COVID-19 currently, Nag said that initially there was panic and fear, but a month into the lockdown, that has settled down.
“People are moving to digital to find what to do, concerts, made at home ads by brands, stay safe, social distancing campaigns. The downside here is that most brands are delivering the same message. CSR is becoming hackneyed,” she said. “How does a brand differentiate, it becomes important to look at the next level of cultural nuances. Some brands are doing it right, for example Mother Dairy ice creams, Himalayan Men, Kelloggs, Xiaomi. Remember your distribution has been hit; the physical availability of the product is not there.”
The media that needs to be used during this phase is TV news channels, digital and OTT, owned media, and gaming. “The idea is to sustain top of the mind recall and not to push sales,” revealed Bhattacharya.
Moving on to the recovery phase, he said that the messaging that began in the outbreak phase should continue as it will be difficult to get a total fix on this phase. Said he: “Remember, continue with that coherent strategy. If earlier collaboration was about delivery then extend it to the shopping experience, towards entertainment, but don’t overdo the latter. Let the product and its messaging offer hope and optimism. Use influencers, if you can.”
Nag elaborated that recuperation is staggered and essentials will become more important. The brands in the CPG category, like food, shampoos, baby care, will have to constantly keep reminding people of their existence or they might lose consumers as during the outbreak phase they might not have been available and been replaced by others.
The media that can be used in this phase include: news and movie TV channels, some out of home could kick in, some cinema but in the context of social distancing, in-shop activation, mall activation, and of course continuing to use digital and influencers to evolve the brand story.
In the stabilisation phase, marketers have to understand what kind of new customer behaviours the event has brought in. “Continue with whatever you have started in the first two phases if you have got the traction,” said Bhattacharya. “Brands can start creating assets which are more product-centric. However, brand building needs to be continuous.”
Nag stated that customers will most likely be looking for more value in this phase as some may have lost jobs or used up their money and they will also have developed new habits. She cited Netflix which learnt from the 2008 financial debacle and went from physical rental of video tapes to delivering a streaming service which is so successful currently.
“The world of integrated media will become important as people will start going back to the physical world. This is going to trigger some long-lasting behaviour changes, in terms of choosing products. Understanding this is something that marketers should do and latch on to the findings.”
