We asked 23 of the top CMOs in America to tell us which brands are navigating COVID-19 well. Then my 7 year old son analyzed the data.
This article was going to be about 25 brands that CMOs told us were getting it right (or wrong) during COVID-19. We were going to share a clever model based on that data that would inform your marketing response. You were going to find it super helpful and send it to your friends and colleagues to read it.
But then my 7 year-old son (Cooper) walked in as I was analyzing the data and things got funny and profound.
His second grade teachers at PS87 (#heroes) are using Pearson & Google Classroom to teach him about data classification. I couldn’t resist putting it to the test.
“Hey Coop, check this out.”
He looked up from an amphibious Lego vehicle, glanced at the model on my screen and made a face. Not a good one.
The model looked like this:
I hoped Coop’s stink face was because he didn’t understand what the hell he was looking at. So I broke it down;
“We made this model so people could think about winning brands based on the role those brands are playing during shelter-in-place. That way they can stop thinking about their industries or competitors and start thinking about their role relative to the current crises”
Coop seemed to understand.
Then he dropped the truth the way only 7 year olds can (all respect to Kim Scott).
“That’s dumb.
It’s 3 circles.
Good. Medium. Catastrophic”
I had no idea where he learned the word catastrophic. I felt 98% proud and 2% dumb.
We enlisted his 6 year old cousin (Parker) to draw it and my 10 year old son (Hudson) to populate Cooper’s model:
The kids picked their favorites independent of our CMO study. Taco Bell made it into the Good bubble because of its contactless drive-through. Apple made it in for their “creativity goes on” commercial and not firing their retail employees. BTW, all of these brands showed up in the CMO responses too.
More importantly, the best insight came from the brain of a 7 year-old while I was busy screwing around with a much more complicated model.
It's not that complicated. Don't be a catastrophe during a catastrophe. Try to make things "good" for people right now.
Finally, I want to leave you with a quick story about a company making things good and doing it with an inspirational/smart approach; Epic Books. (And no, I don’t know Allison Van Houten nor did she put me up to this).
Epic Books maps to the essential category in our model (yes, that’s the model my 7-year-old son hates).
Epic’s mission is to make books more accessible to kids. During normal times, they execute on that mission with a Netflix-like digital book subscription product targeting families with 5 to 12 years olds.
During Covid-19, Epic temporarily lifted their subscription fee for families. Giving away free-distance learning tools during a crises shows just how committed Epic is to their mission. It makes them so much more believable and so much more love-able. But the story doesn’t stop there.
Epic rolled the promotion out through schools and teachers. In all of Epic’s communications the teachers are celebrated as the heroes — not Epic. It is everything great marketing should be. They’re solving a real pressing need, inspiring word of mouth, behaving true to their mission, and celebrating the true heroes. The response and content on social media says it all:
Thanks Epic. And thanks to Ellie and Rebecca at PS 87 for bringing it to our family. And Hudson, Cooper and Parker for keeping it real.
And for the rest of you, let’s listen to the wisdom of 7 year-olds. Time to earn our way into that good bubble.
