Post-Apocalyptic Marketing
What the contemporary marketer’s crystal ball knows about the future of branded messaging
The coronavirus pandemic has broken a lot more than just our global healthcare machinery. It has broken down the imaginary walls we built to conceal the fragility of our social concepts about freedom, social interactions, and work. Jobs are vanishing, and so are marketing budgets.
Right now, consumers don’t have the money to buy things. Brands don’t have the money to advertise their products. And to top it off, production and supply chains don’t have the bandwidth to make things available even if there was demand. It is time we swallow the bitter pill and admit that we have no idea about the future of our lives or livelihood.
But there’s something clearly very dissonant about failure, and it stems from our fundamental nature to never accept it. Humans are a resilient breed, and if history is anything to go by- we will eventually stage a full turnaround to normalcy (whatever ‘normal’ will mean then).
This also means that conventional forms of both customer interactions and product marketing have already gone for a toss with a greater focus towards capital conservation and therefore a genocide of marketing budgets around us. In a Dystopian world as this, here’s what (the remaining) marketers should do to ensure job continuity-
Say it. Don’t spray it.
There is not a more optimistic breed of individuals in the market than digital business owners. A cursory chat with them will tell you what you never needed to know about ‘converting a crisis into an opportunity.’ Which as we learn from e-apparel brand Asos, sometimes generates a very predictable faux pas.
Recently, brands like Hershey’s, KFC, Geico and more had to pull their ads in recognition of how they might portray their brands as ones looking to profit from fear.
Let’s admit it- opportunity marketing is tempting. But what many don’t understand is the coronavirus has also caused massive personal losses.
The average consumer’s inbox is now cluttered with regular messages from the government, their friends, crowdfunding applications, their children’s schools and they’ve just had enough!
The true motto today is ‘minimalist, selfless marketing.’
Or- marketing only when absolutely necessary and even then, only to give back to your community sans the expectation of immediate returns. Like it or not, brand associations are an integrative function of both your products/services and your brand’s empathetic appeal. Utilizing this time to build your community with trust and collaboration will also build for you, an irrevocable brand identity that is based on giving, not taking.
Indian food delivery app Zomato’s Feeding India Foundation was a company-assisted crowd-sourcing fund to help feed India’s daily wager community which has been severely impacted during the nationwide lockdown. As of now it has already generated $4.08 million in funds, while the approx. cost of feeding 5 families a meal each being $33.10. As a result, Zomato now has an unassailable brand that has gained credence, and has maintained a strong brand voice during this global crisis.
Data doesn’t deceive.
COVID-19 has already initiated an exodus of businesses into the online domain. An abrupt restructuring of supply and distribution networks, consumer mobility, and the consumer’s increasing proclivity towards the digital media means ad dollars are also invariably being detoured towards data-led digital endeavors.
This is not only because people have a lot more time to be on the internet, but also since programmatic digital advertisements can leverage consumer insights to understand audience preferences with a greater degree of accuracy.
Considering the rapid metamorphosis of consumer-brand interactions and the current exercise of marketing frugality, it is now the end of the line for intuition-led marketing. With each ad dollar warranting tangible returns, digital ads are becoming even more lucrative owing to its ability to accommodate quantifiable metrics of performance assessment.
Innovation is a continuous process.
Contrary to popular belief, a static market should not translate into the suspension of brand R&D efforts.
Since your audience’s screen time and interaction with technologies are now more than they were ever before, all your marketing efforts must be analytically employed to be where your T.A. is. This means, focusing on the technologies of the moment.
Digital services are in vogue-
OTT, gaming, ed-tech, social media and other digital platforms in general, are inexpensive since they allow more authority over your own marketing expenditures by enabling targeting filters based on- the time of the day, the audience age-group, location, and other demographic or psychographic factors.
Furthermore, since all the aforementioned experiences are transferable into the convenience of mobile-phones, and second-screens, advertising on these platforms also help to drive message retention by engaging with the target audience across different interaction points throughout the day.
Your devices are listening.
Since Amazon Alexa went rogue and issued death threats last year, voice-led searches and voice-assistants have turned a new corner. And while I can still swear that the digital-concierge triad (Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa) are all secret spies and will eventually come back to hypnotize humanity with cat-videos, analysts predict that within the next few years 50% of all searches online, will be via voice.
Respond when your audience calls for you.
Brand investments in marketing via voice-led searches also expose the necessity for developments in terms of languages, dialects and voice-led SEO. Not only do brands need to incorporate voice search, to scale the idea they also need to make multi-lingual voice recognition a reality, since major digital opportunity markets are also largely non-English including India and China.
Not just that, they also help understand audience preferences better. This is because voice-led searches are conversational, come in full sentences, and often display the entire consumer journey leading to desired responses and finally a click or CTA.
Voice-searches also promote results specificity, procuring as many as 5 top results. These are not only the cream of the crop but are also more recognizable.
Trust is the most legitimate currency.
The coronavirus has not been good for business. The more you try to hide it, the more obvious it is to your audience. Companies globally are slashing salaries and jobs, and there are chances you might too. In that case, ensure that you are doing more than just making emotional statements that aren’t grounded in reality or action.
Lay yourself bare. Yet, communicate hope.
Airbnb’s approach ticks all the right boxes. CEO Brian Chesky’s open letter to his employees on planned lay-offs does not only tackle the hard news head-on, but also accounts for corrective action taken by the company to facilitate new opportunities and make job-hunting easier for the ones being let go.
In everything that you do, give reasons. Tell your audience not only what it wants to hear but what it needs to hear too, and you will find your audacity respected sooner or later.
Don’t sell products. Sell ideas.
This, I know, is a marketing cliche. But it is one that works really well. Look around you- maybe your competitors are selling the same thing as you are, maybe they’re selling something that is closely related to what you’re trying to market. Either way, as long as you’re still trying to sell things, you’re already losing.
Great marketing isn’t the effort taken to justify your product, it is instead the effort taken to justify buying behaviour. Hence, don’t try to sell locks: sell security. Don’t sell cameras; sell memories. Products come with an expiration date, stories are durable.
But even to sell stories, you’ll need customer insights. Know what it is that will motivate someone in the same sector shift from consideration to action. Utilise your data-sets, and understand consumer journeys and at all times, be wherever your consumer is looking.
Marketing Darwinism.
All marketing strategies are transitory. With shifting business environments, capabilities, and shifting competitor dynamics, marketing endeavors too will change.
The ones that are attentive to their proximal stimulus, aware of their potential to bring in quick and nifty transformation, and ones that actively deploy social listening to guide their strategy formation are the ones who will transcend factions non-responsive to change. As Gary Vaynerchuk said-
“Market like the year you are in.”
