How companies have adapted creatively to the COVID-19 crisis
“This is the litmus test to our ability to deal with a crisis and emergency. This is the time for us to demonstrate our adaptability, resilience, responsiveness and relevance”
Jin Liqun, president, AIIB
COVID 19 has made a great impact on the world. The way of life for many of us had changed. Economies of many countries are in decline and companies are struggling to survive. To face the future, businesses have had to adapt. Through pandemic lockdown stores and offices were closed and people were forced to stay indoors. This led to the growth of the online market and lots of companies have changed the way they sell their products. In Northern America, for example, in February alone online conversion rates grew by 8.8% and there was a 146% growth in online retail orders.
Although people started to buy more online, some categories grew rapidly but others started to decline due to lockdown restrictions. For example, healthcare and food and fitness products are growing while products related to outdoor activities like tourism or formal wear are not so in demand. In other cases, people want to try products before making a purchase. The car market, for example, dropped by 97.3% at the beginning of the lockdown as all the showrooms got closed. In April only 4,321 new cars were registered compared to 161,064 in the same month of the previous year.
Businesses adapt:
Sales
Many retail companies dropped their prices by 4.6% in April 2020 (the biggest monthly drop since 2006).
Courier delivery
In Russia and Ukraine, businesses have turned to courier delivery. Customer choose up to 10 items online, the courier delivers them and the customers just buy the ones they want.
Home delivery
Supermarkets and restaurants have increased their home deliveries through the pandemic. The proportion of meals delivered by restaurants grew from 2.6% before lockdown to 20.8% after the beginning of isolation (from 16 to 22 of march). The U.S. online grocery market saw a 33.3% increase in April compared to March and hit a new sales record of $5.30 billion dollars.
Contactless sales technology
Gas stations, supermarkets and other retail outlets have favoured contactless payments as customers were advised to use contactless ways of paying for commodities. ASDA and Ubamarket developed new contactless mobile app technology to protect their customers. The government of Oregon had to lift their restrictions on self-service on gas stations to make fuel available in the state.
Quarantine also brought significant changes to the marketing industry. European companies decreased their advertising budgets by 9%. Out-of-home and cinema advertising markets collapsed immediately. Companies reoriented to digital marketing and focused on direct response campaigns to stimulate an increase in sales.
As people were quarantined so online advertisements have become a primary way to communicate with customers. Facebook recently revealed statistics showing that during March 2020 customers spent 70% more time on their platform. Overall engagement on PSA passed 1.5 billion, on 480,000 posts. Clearly, many customers are online and it’s a great opportunity for marketers to increase their brand awareness in this space.
The Coronavirus is a unique digital marketing opportunity. Over the past few months, I have examined how four companies have adapted their advertising to maintain a connection with their customers.
Audi
Zoom — the cloud platform for video, voice, content sharing and chat became very popular during the pandemic. The app is used to host virtual classes, work conferences, and even blind dates. App tracking company Apptopia states that Zoom got 2.13m downloads around the globe on the first day of the UK lockdown in March and this number kept growing. German automobile manufacturer Audi used this opportunity to publish a series of photos that are perfect as an alternate Zoom background. The event was promoted on Audi’s website and several Audi fans and car lovers’ websites. It is hard to estimate how successful the campaign was without hard numbers but it was clearly an imaginative response to the pandemic. The cost of making these photos was unlikely to be significant and mentions of this event on car-fans websites itself may well have justified the approach.
IKEA
IKEA, the furniture, kitchen appliances and home accessories company made a series of creative house designs as an advertisement. The Russian division of IKEA developed different variations of castles kids can build at home for entertainment. The company posted this ad on its social media and received very positive feedback in the comments. People wrote that it reminded them of childhood, was cute, and that they were excited to go and build one with their children.
Playboy
Playboy — the American men’s lifestyle and entertainment magazine, made a provocative video during lockdown where they showed six ways to protect yourself from coronavirus. They launched a campaign in social media and linear TV. On Playboy’s Instagram page this video was very positively received. People liked the idea, music and fun approach.
Through these unique ads, companies are trying to create experiences that will be shared widely online. However, there are some challenges. It’s hard to convert to sales and could be risky for the business’ public image as people can easily misunderstand some of them. In some cases, they may even face a backlash if some find the ads offensive or inappropriate.
McDonald’s
McDonald’s — an American fast food company, made a creative advertisement relevant to the coronavirus where they separated the arcs to show social distancing. The ad was highly criticised. U.S Senator Bernie Sanders wrote that instead of separating the arcs McDonald’s should give workers paid sick leave. Other critics focused on salary and service issues. The advertisement turned out to be a bad move and McDonalds removed it.
COVID 19 has brought huge and potentially irreversible change to our society. The pandemic also, however, has provided some business opportunities. New trends are emerging, like contactless selling technology, trying products at home with couriers and new online advertisements campaigns. As I have illustrated, it is possible to be creative and entrepreneurial even in a pandemic. It can be an opportunity in ways companies have never imagined.
