Stop Being Tone Deaf!
Top Three Tips for Marketers during a Pandemic
Branding in the Time of Covid-19
I keep thinking that instead of “Love in the Time of Cholera,” it’s “Branding in the Time of Covid-19.” But maybe it’s not Gabriel Garcia Marquez-like after all. What we’re living really feels more like a dystopian novel. Ray Bradbury, better? Suzanne Collins? Aldous Huxley?
And what does this even mean for your work as a marketer, on a particular brand? If you are a marketer, you are probably thinking about what strategy will address what you already know: customers are in a very different mindset, with related behavioral change implications for this “Brave New World.”
As I write, it is end-March 2020 and things remain difficult and uncertain. Every business is being impacted world-wide, while at the same time many worry for families’ and our own safety, and many have seen serious tragedy from the virus, be it loss of life or financial losses or loss of income.
Read on for my “IRL” (in real life) tips for businesses on how your brand can lead in any crisis, and in particular during this strange and unprecedented time.
I’ve been watching companies communicate via social media and email during this pandemic. Some are spot on, while others, not so much. I am sharing advice especially for consumer-facing, e-commerce businesses out there, although I include B2B examples because everyone can benefit from carefully thought-out brand messaging appropriate for the here and now.
Spoiler Alert: The Top THREE Tips I will dive into for Getting your Brand Messaging Right in this environment are as follows:
TIP #1: Above All, Don’t be Tone Deaf!
TIP #2: Right now, more than ever, IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU.
TIP #3: Associate with saving lives; otherwise focus on other societal benefits.
Read on for what exactly I mean by the above Tips, with full explanations and examples to help you make the right decisions for your brand and your performance marketing plans asap:
TIP #1: Above All, Don’t be Tone Deaf
For many brands, there may be no need to go silent, as some brands have done. It’s NOT business as usual for any brand, but by all means, don’t pretend it is by having your usual ads. That would be totally Tone Deaf! Going totally silent is far preferable than acting as if nothing has changed. In fact, doing business as usual can be harmful to your brand; it says you are insensitive, that you don’t care about anything but yourself and profits. This breaks trust with your customer and can literally hurt your brand and your bottom line.
Moreover, recent data backs up that it’s ok to address the crisis in your advertising if you can tailor your message correctly, without being tone deaf. For example, the below study showed a majority of customers are ok with brands mentioning the pandemic, if done in an appropriate way:
I am not advocating being silent; I am advocating avoiding tone deafness. However, if you do for other reasons decide to go silent, at least first let people know WHY you are silent, whether it be a donation of what would have been marketing expenses, or explain you are going dark to keep your business alive.
What Not To Do: A start up brand who shall remain nameless continues to target me over and over with a remarketing campaign on Facebook with the same ad it had on last month, without acknowledging we are in the middle of the pandemic. That is a classic “tone deaf” example, and is actually a brand turn-off.
What Else Not To Do: Another small company that has a high end luxury brand (who also shall remain nameless) also continues to post pictures of their product on Instagram, and “business as usual” posts on Facebook. Furthermore, one of their posts then said something to the effect of “I don’t know what to do or say,” meaning they are feeling at a loss and thought that would be authentic, because it’s true. But this is not helpful for the brand, as customers need leadership or reassurance or a sense that they too are suffering with everyone. They need authenticity, for sure, but saying you don’t know what to do and not offering something doesn’t help your brand. Your brand needs to adjust and change and you need to acknowledge what is happening on some level, while offering up an insight or window into how to move forward together. If your product is something frivolous and not useful for a pandemic, it can be as simple as “we’re all working from home and are here for you if you need a break from the news; here’s something pretty to look at. Beauty heals, and we are here for you for that purpose” line of messaging. Said another way, put the customer’s needs first, and you won’t be tone deaf.
Even More of What Not To Do: This high-end brand, Ultracor, seems pretty “tone deaf” and insensitive to me with their message; here is an ad from end-March:
UltraCor’s earlier emails almost got it right a few days earlier by saying things like “Cabin Fever” sale — a little playfulness about staying at home could have worked if they had tempered the rest of their message. Instead, it merely comes off as offputting without further explanation, context, or empathic messaging. And the above email seems as though it was created before the pandemic ever existed — “having everything” is already over the top, but in today’s crisis world with so many suffering, this type of messaging merely seems borderline offensive to me and is thus unwelcome.
HBR, Perfect Pitch Tone: A B2B example of getting the tone JUST RIGHT is Harvard Business Review. They have shifted their “product,” that is, much of the published content on their home page to cover business advice on the current crisis, in an effort to get business leaders what they need for this specific situation, and they have made all that related content FREE to all readers. Furthermore, they are not afraid to address the emotional piece of it, publishing a very well-circulated article “That Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief,” in which they name a feeling of grief, which includes feelings of grief for the future because the future means a loss of our way of life from before.
TIP #2: Right now, more than ever, IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU (i.e. not about your brand).
Right now, customers’ heads are in a different time and place: so, what I mean by “it’s not about you” is, don’t sell your product directly; sell your brand’s humanity. Yes, you may have decided that your advertising is continuing, and advertising may be about your brand, or about the leadership your brand is taking, but be customer-first in any messaging.
Turn your message outward, not inward on the brand or the product itself. It’s about the customer now more than ever, meaning their health and safety, or their mental and physical well-being, or about being an empathic part of the larger community, be it something hyper-local or as a global citizen. You have a unique opportunity to take a leadership stand. Quite simply, it’s a time to let customers know you are aware of what’s going on and are in it together with them.
For Performance Marketers, “don’t sell directly” essentially means not running mostly conversion campaigns. “It’s not about you” is really another way of saying that your messaging needs to be about the crisis. So, ironically, not putting your brand first but communicating how your brand can be a leader in the crisis is tantamount to helping your brand, rather than marketing efforts to make a sale. This means you need a major shift in how you buy social media AND in how you present your results to management. Remember that most businesses are down, some 90% or more. You should therefore focus all appropriate marketing budget away from conversion campaigns and towards if not entirely focused on, brand awareness campaigns. Reach and frequency will be key metrics when buying ads, while engagement (and not conversions) will be the key metric for evaluating these campaigns.
Connecting with prospects and loyal customers and bringing everyone together in an appropriate “we’re all in this together” is in effect just a brand campaign that doesn’t focus on what your brand is about product-wise, but how your brand can help in this crisis. It shows your brand is playing a key role in the larger community, which is what customers are craving even more now. This offers your brand a unique opportunity in doing so to stand out and improve your brand image. SproutSocial did a study last year before the crisis, showing exactly how improving that connection can impact the bottom line:
This effort to make customers feel connected to each other through your brand, and thus to the brand itself, is even more true during a crisis. Your most loyal customers want you to be a leader making them feel they are not alone in the crisis, but also new customers can get a very good impression of your brand if they know that you are handling the crisis better than competitors. Getting them to engage with your brand now, be it likes/follows/ site traffic brings them down the consideration funnel and is an investment that makes your brand the one they will recall later fondly when the crisis is over. Remember also that social listening will show trends for how your brand is perceived over time. Brands that do this well will be the ones to triumph when the crisis is over, who will be remembered as being a leader through the crisis and will win when the business environment improves. Be sure to integrate your paid social channel efforts by working closely with PR and/or influencers to amplify and integrate the messaging you are doing now.
Guinness: One big brand example that’s banged this out of the park on this front is Guinness. Guinness has continued paid social advertising, and merely switched all their brand messaging to be situation-specific. Their messaging does not focus on their brand directly, but recommends customers call their grandparents, and tells customers to NOT go to pubs until it is safe to do so, and to toast while social distancing, while at the same time pledging funds to help pubs out. This image is a Guinness Facebook video ad (click to watch):
Guinness messaging is front and center about keeping customers safe and has pitch perfect tone. They are focusing on the way to bring their brand into your life and that their brand means connecting, and they tie the Irish way of life and way of connecting (their brand’s roots) to doing so, but recommend in this situation to do it in a technically savvy way. They are the leader, the benevolent “parent” if you will, reassuring everyone it will be all right one day and how to conduct oneself now to stay a community and a hopeful society for the future, and they also reassure that they are not going anywhere and won’t be going out of business. This is a very powerful and very emotional means to reassure customers that “this too shall pass” and we all will make it through, because the reassurance includes both the company and brand itself; life will be different, but we (and they) will adapt and endure. This is branding at its best: providing an emotional benefit for a brand that goes far beyond the product itself, and is about resilience and helping each other get through it.
P&G and Unilever: The largest FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) worldwide corporations, representing many household brands, have each made a point of using their vast distribution capabilities and product manufacturing to distribute free masks and cleaning supplies including hand sanitizers to hospitals. These are not the usual products they sell, and they are not SELLING them to customers in any way — the marketing is focused on the most at-risk customers out there only, and they are making a donation of those life-saving materials to the healthcare industry.
They have then proudly announced their efforts to all customers of theirs through marketing on social channels (and gaining earned media coverage of this fact, too), in a smart marketing move that highlights their brands and the good they do. This is also excellent internal HR communication that motivates employees and will help recruit top-notch candidates. Finally, this has a life-saving impact but also a clear, positive halo effect on their brand.
Plaza Park Interiors: A hyper-local B2B small business example in Westchester, New York also is making their marketing visible to their target customer, but the marketing is only about how they are helping by producing and donating to the most at-risk customers, healthcare workers, who need masks. They are marketing the fact that they are producing hand-sewn masks. This is especially strategic for their brand because their service is about sewing (they do upholstery for the design trade), and thus ties nicely to their core competence.
Plaza Park Interiors also addresses the local business community on social media to join together with it, creating a nice sense of all being in it together. And after posting, they even now have “brand ambassadors” from the trade associations who are plugging the new free service they are providing on social media, and asking for donors of cotton fabric to the business itself so that Plaza Park Interiors can produce even more, giving brand awareness to the business, a third party endorsement, and engaging the community itself, while also providing life-saving services.
TIP #3: Associate your brand immediately either with saving lives at the front lines, or if your brand cannot do that, then focus on one or more societal benefits you CAN offer.
A. If your business can change business strategy temporarily to help directly save lives or if you can afford a donation to someone who can do so, then do it, and then shout that from the rooftops in your marketing (specific examples include those mentioned in Tip #1, but also below: Gap’s making masks, Under Armour’s making a donation to those who are going hungry due to school closures)
A. But if you can’t offer a medical device, a mask, or are not a food service or cleaning product/hand sanitizer delivery, then focus on how your product or service improves society’s mental health and well-being, offers free service temporarily in the crisis, or provides jobs or sick leave. (specific example below: MMLaFleur is very clear about the fact that it is providing a distraction, and thus a mental health/wellness benefit)
At very least, your brand can spell out in an obvious way that you are instead helping customers’ mental health and well-being. This benefit can be as small and as simple as providing a distraction! Here are some examples of benefits to helping improve customers’ well being:
a) a welcome psychological distraction to the upsetting reality and news,
b) assertions of a sense of community, communicating a solidarity that we are all in this together, and we can make it together,
c) offers of gratitude: thanking and naming who is being heroic in this fight,
d) free offers: giving part of your service free during this time (i.e. free shipping or Big Tech’s offering video for free temporarily), and/ or
d) by pointing out the jobs you are providing during the crisis.
The above-mentioned examples mentioned in Tip #2 (“Right now, more than ever, it’s NOT ABOUT YOU”) actually changed their product strategy to produce life-saving masks and hand sanitizer, or made a new donation. This goes well beyond marketing to actually change what the company is doing, and marketing merely broadcasts and capitalizes on those efforts to help boost brand image.
Two more examples include one that changed product strategy (Gap) and one that also made a donation (Under Armour). Both of these two examples did so with a few missteps, but they are now on the right track.
Here is an assessment of where each of Gap and Under Armour initially had a misstep, and should correct:
Gap: Brand message: Saving lives by making masks, gowns, scrubs.
- Misstep: did not make sure to communicate on all social channels.
- This example gets into business strategy. Marketing should help shape any product strategy shift, and then adapt messaging for it and about it, in a way that puts the brand in a positive light. In the US, for example, Gap has transformed its production into making what it hopes are life-saving masks for caregivers at hospitals.
Gap fell down when they only posted the above on LinkedIn. It’s nowhere in their organic social Facebook or Instagram feed, and this is a huge missed opportunity to reach customers with a strong message about their brand’s doing good in a time of crisis and also making good use of production facilities and employees. Messaging has to be integrated in ALL channels to make the most impact.
Under Armour: Brand message/strategy: Donation.
- Misstep: the message was very late to the party, and they, too, still need improvement integrating email across website and social.
- It took Under Armour brand until March 19 to respond at all to the crisis. Up until then, it was business as usual. Their emails with sales and “buy now” came as many were panicking. This acts to irritate customers, who could be thinking: “why is someone sending me useless discount clothing and showing ads everywhere while a pandemic is happening? I’m trying not to leave my house after seeing what is going on in Italy, and they’re clueless.” This is a major brand miss — I might even say a brand fail. But they finally caught on. Their emails switched — on March 19th — and they sent out had a letter outlining a donation of $1 million to feeding America for Hunger relief efforts to children impacted by Covid-19 school closures who used to be on free lunch and now need food; and, they launched a very on-strategy message about a fitness challenge, very aligned with their brand, and included some business partners too, showing their leadership and community-building with other companies.
From then on, Under Armour marketing emails (such as the above example) talk about all getting “through this together” and are thus about the customer, the community, not about their latest sale or their usual focus on their own products. Another missed opportunity here, though, is not communicating their improved messaging better on their website and organic social, where they only mention store closures.
MMLaFleur: Direct to Consumer, digital e-commerce player, MMLaFleur, has been a master at acting as a welcome psychological distraction to the upsetting reality and news. They are a brand who has decided not to offer life-saving devices nor change their product strategy, but has instead been extremely clear and deft about their wellness benefits of providing a distraction in time of crisis, both on email and integrated across social media. Not only are their clothes and shopping being named as a distraction, but they took it a step further and provided unrelated content in email that provides an additional content distraction. They have tailored the clothing they show to be applicable to work from home environments but have tailored content even more, going beyond clothing, to be highly applicable for their customers in this very unique moment in time.
Here are a few partial excerpts from two of their emails:
Two Final, Additional Thoughts to keep in mind once you have your marketing plans in order:
- Ensure that whatever you offer is on strategy for your brand itself. For example, if you are donating, make sure that donation is strategically aligned with your brand; otherwise, no one will remember your donation and it will not help your brand.
- Customer Service matters now, more than ever. Beyond marketing and branding, work to make the whole business in line with any new messaging and customer focus. Marketers, partner with internal to help customer service be the community and customer-focused area that can adapt to this new situation; ensure they are empowered to do more for customers in this unique crisis and that they understand their job is to make customer’s lives better. Your message is offering help to customers and is in tune with where they are; make sure your customer service is in tune as well so that the brand message carries through the entire customer experience. Give customer service people the tools and empower them to do that and to solve problems. Don’t let them stop by checking off they handled a “case.” Remind them that their job is not to respond to a customer but to make the customer love your brand; they are the hero for the brand, the keeper of the brand, the closest to the customer and represent the best the brand can offer. Ask them what they need to be that hero.
CONCLUSION:
Face the global pandemic head on, and Lead. Acknowledge where the customer is and put them front and center in your messaging; rethink product strategy and offer benefits that help them with the crisis; and, above all, avoid being tone deaf.
Healing customers is a real consumer need right now, perhaps the only need at all. Ask yourself: What can your brand do to help with that in an authentic way? Doing so will connect you to your customer in a positive way and build loyalty to what your brand stands for.
Suffice it to say that in branding — and in life — words and beauty can heal. Name things for what they are, offer hope, help, and understanding, and communicate that you are a part of the community, choose the right words in the right tone, and you can help heal in some way.
Good luck with your brand marketing, your brand messaging, your performance marketing plans. Stay as safe and healthy as you can, keep fighting, help others, imagine and work towards a better, non-dystopian future, and let’s get through this situation together!
EndNote: these recommendations are for today, in this environment and moment in time, and primarily focus on the U.S. market, although this could be applicable to other Western markets, where e-commerce and distribution are still intact, and the internet is working. If any of those become disrupted in any way, my recommendations would shift and adapt.
