How has marketing changed due to COVID-19?
Since the first item was ever traded for or bartered for, there has been marketing! Marketing has evolved to become a cornerstone of business. Marketing is vital to the business world by reaching buyers, aid in the creation, communication, delivery, and much more. However, the thing about marketing is that it is ever-changing. Marketing began to be more of a focus for businesses after WWII. The consumer was able to purchase things much easier and prices were lower due to competition. We see the creation of marketing departments and strategies take off around the 1920s. Decades later, when technology began to develop there was a new change in the field of marketing. Marketers need to adapt to these changes to stay relevant. New technology is developed and released at such an accelerated pace that marketers need to do everything they can to work with the change. However, 2020 revealed some new changes for the marketing world, coronavirus.
Marketing During a Crisis: Coronavirus 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic, that closed down most of the United States in March of this year, has been a unique change in how marketers go about marketing for companies. According to
Marketing Dive, a digital marketing new source, there have been mixed situations on the response companies are having to the current climate. Some companies were able to look at their relationship with the consumer. Bob Liodice, CEO of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) told Marketing Dive that analysis has shown that relationships between customers and brands have strengthened due to the pandemic. With this in mind, marketers may want to take the time to analyze the brand they currently have. Can the brand be used during a time of recession?
Reevaluating Your Businesses’s Brand and Marketing Strategy
That question leads into a podcast from iab.com who spoke to Adam Wiese. Adam Wiese is the VP and the Strategy Director at Giant Spoon and went on iab.there in May and spoke on brand building during a recession. This is similar to how marketers should brand during the COVID-19 outbreak. Wiese went on to explain how today’s companies that excel in the market can turn into tomorrow’s market leaders. If a company responds well to hard financial times they can increase in market share. Coronavirus may turn out to be a helpful situation for some companies who want to increase their market share! Some advice Adam Wiese gave about replanning strategies amidst the COVID-19 outbreak. He says the first course of action would be to rethink where the budget is being allocated. Are things lining up? Are people doing what needs to be done? Maybe moving money around will help with using the budget to the fullest. Wiese also talked about reevaluating and plan out what your brand is. To start with this is to reach out to your audience. Show them they are seen and known. Another piece to this is how marketers think. Typically, marketers respond to things happening in real-time. However, in this time, marketers need to start to think ahead with how they want to operate after the pandemic ends. Finally, brands need to find their personal “North Star” in their marketing. The North Star he refers to is about that one message all your branding goes back to. Brands that focus on their North Star will always do well in uncertain times such as the coronavirus outbreak.
Working From Home: Is This the New Normal?
Another way marketing could change due to COVID is working online. For the past several months people in all different industries have been able to work remotely from anywhere in the world. As the spread of the virus lessen, will companies go back into the office? Will working from home be a more common and used practice? With resources such as Zoom and Google Hangouts working from home has never been easier! The question in a post-coronavirus world is will marketers need to go back into the office or will they continue to work from home?
Change isn’t Always Bad, It’s How You Adjust That Matters!
Coronavirus has changed marketing. There is no denying that. However, marketing has always changed and will always continue to change. The key for marketers is to work with the changes and not against them. There is no “right” way to go about changing marketing in a world that is going through a pandemic. The only wrong way is to not make any changes whatsoever. Companies need to find their north star and bridge the gap between their values and their marketing.
