Marketing In The Time Of Corona — Forging Meaningful Connections In The New Normal
Long gone are the days of staged television advertisements and product endorsements; brands are now prioritising empathetic messaging to strike a cord with people.
For the first time, I didn’t see any presence of Cadbury’s ritualistic “Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye” ad on Diwali; instead, I happened upon their new ad campaign, “Not Just A Cadbury Ad”. The heartfelt video was created to support 1,800 small businesses across major cities in India with the help of AI, a first-of-its-kind hyper-personalised ad which showed viewers local stores around them based on their location.
A few days ago I came across Bajaj Allianz Life’s new commercial, “Khushiyon Ka Return Gift” which showcases meaningful gifting — no more insignificant showpieces, clothes or “forwarded” mithai boxes. Instead the ad encourages gifting “that goes towards fulfilling someone’s life goals” — online classes for the help’s child or a musical instrument for a burnt out friend.
Brands have come a long way from saying “Buy My Product”
The pandemic has changed the world as we know it, so it is only fitting that brands changed their communication strategies too. In the article titled “Brands Need to Refine Their Empathy Messaging If They Hope to Reach Consumers”, I read that people are leaning towards brands displaying empathy and attempting to forge emotional connections through their messaging.
People all over the world are facing unprecedented challenges and now more than ever, we want to see brands going the extra mile, lending a helping hand to those in need, and encouraging a sense of support and togetherness.
Undoubtedly, it is challenging on both ends. Brands are faced with the daunting task of creating novel, out-of-the-box content and adopting new mediums of communication in the new normal; all of this with excruciatingly limited resources and the dire need to stay afloat. And people, well, with the purchasing power being at an all-time low, have forgone their brand loyalties to a substantial extent. Considering the basic demand-supply laws of Economics, how, then, is a market supposed to function when the demand is low (in most industries) and the supply has limited mediums?
At this stage, brands have to first understand the challenges faced by their consumers and their needs, in order to serve those needs. Emirates, for instance, has aced the brand recovery game this year. The airline was the first in its industry to offer free Covid-19 medical cover to restore customer confidence. Recently, it was declared the “world’s safest airline” as per the Safe Travel Barometer, adding yet another badge to its name at a time when numerous other brands continue to struggle. The travel and tourism sector has adopted empathetic communication in its own way too — tapping into people’s urge to travel, reassuring them that they will travel again soon and until then, curating virtual experiences for them.
Where, when and how brands reach people has seen a rather tectonic digital shift this year, with most of it here to stay for the long haul— case in point, the significant rise in E-commerce platforms.
People don’t just want to know what value your product/service will add to their lives, but how you will fit in their lives fundamentally and emotionally. They want to see a long term impact.
In essentially every industry, we’ve seen a change in the consumer behaviour dynamics — the preference for sustainable fashion, healthy, ethical, eco-friendly, SAFE products. So much so that even luxury brand Tom Ford is set to launch its very first eco-friendly watch made with 100% recycled ocean plastic, with Ford commenting, “In my opinion, ethical luxury is the greatest luxury of all”.
If there’s anything we’ve learnt this year about human behaviour, it’s that people seek transparency, support and meaningful connections with each other, and it’s no different when it comes to brands. We all want to be associated with brands who propagate a sense of belonging and care for the community, and this sentimentality is undoubtedly here to stay in the long term.
