America’s pandemic snack: Lay’s potato chips

Tianhui Ou (Tina)
Marketing in the Age of Digital
4 min readOct 24, 2021

Purchase Intent For Potato Chips Has Increased

Stuck at home with nowhere to go, many Americans can’t help but snack more, and many are grabbing a bag of Lay’s potato chips.

Since mid-March — when the World Health Organization first declared COVID-19 a pandemic — the number of Americans likely to purchase Lay’s has increased by 35 percent.

What Do Lays Potato Chips Do?

The coronavirus pandemic caused a shift in customer preferences. Customers began to shun discretionary products and focused on essential items. Many people now prioritize health over convenience and price. Additionally, as many people started to work, purchase, and communicate over the internet, brands that utilized online channels to promote their goods recorded massive sales volume. That is why Lays Potato Chips embraced a digital presence by promoting its products via online platforms. For example, the company’s products are available on Amazon and many other online shops.

I think that Lays Potato Chips was right in increasing its focus on selling and marketing its products through online channels such as Amazon. The COVID-19 has changed how consumers think and act. They are now more cautious about what and where they buy as well as how they purchase goods. This has greatly impacted consumer goods companies such as Lays Potato Chips. To survive brands have to refocus their marketing strategies to internet-based platforms because the coronavirus crisis has increased demand for online purchases and communication via online channels.

The Long Term Effect of Pandemic

The marketing departments of many companies have to develop innovative and creative promotional strategies and advertising practices that can help businesses endure the new normal. Firms will need to utilize social media effectively, formulate marketing strategies, develop new products, and deal with brand reputation issues. These approaches are particularly vital as the pandemic will cause revenue decrease and a decline in advertising expenditure. Many organizations will need to focus their marketing budgets on purpose-driven advertising as well as cause-related advertising on social media as many consumers will be active on social media while working from home. Brands will need to redesign their marketing strategies inconsistent with the increased online transactions and active communications with consumers. Companies have to be tactful, utilize innovative marketing, and be conscious of consumers’ concerns. Brands have to acknowledge the pandemic while exhibiting positive values that make customers want to associate the brand’s products.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) has changed marketing, advertising, and promotional expenditures, forcing brands and firms to redesign their marketing and advertising campaigns to have a stable revenue stream. While businesses are working to increase market share during the health crisis, the future business environment foreshadows intense competition, innovative marketing practices, and market alteration. As firms adapt to COVID-19 and endeavor to promote their products, government agencies are also monitoring deceptive marketing campaigns and unfair trade practices to safeguard consumers. To avert the possibility of enforcement actions and suits by competitors, companies have to comply with laws pertaining to charitable sales promotions, use of influencers, gift cards, and social media.

The coronavirus crisis has caused unprecedented financial and health worries, which have and will continue to alter business operations. This change will include how organizations conduct their business and also how they retain and expand their customer base. At the core of this issue is how firms promote their offerings and entice potential customers. Without a doubt, marketing and advertising will be a fundamental focus of companies’ ability to survive and thrive going forward. As businesses try to figure out how the future business environment will be, the issues they ought to reflect on include:

· how they will sustain their brand amid industry and market transformations;

· how to hand competition when customers’ purchase behavior are altered;

· how to engage customers to increase sales by promoting consumption of the company’s products;

· how to communicate effectively with customers in the midst of the health crisis;

· whether to create products and services that align with the current business situation and;

· how businesses should address customers’ worries about health, personal wellness, and community fulfillment.

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