A new world opens: Marketing in the Corona routine

The world that is slowly returning is very different from the one we left on Purim. What happened to consumer culture? Which trends were born to stay? And how do we now build a digital marketing strategy and in general?

The closure was swift: Almost overnight, our global society of abundance became a collection of fortified details. Thoughts about the next vacation, performance or shopping were replaced by deep concern for health, family and livelihood. The return to routine is probably more gradual and raises quite a few questions: Is what was, what will be? Assuming that it is not, or at least not exactly – what consumer world is waiting out there, and what does that say about our marketing and branding strategy?

Before we answer these critical questions, we should clarify for ourselves what has changed. Not only did the level of anxiety rise during the lockdown period – so did the demand for escapism: people spent even more time (it turns out there was still room to increase) on social media, binged Netflix and downloaded many more movies and games. These, along with distance learning and remote working, stretched our collective bandwidth to the limit.

As for consumption, the online sector has leapt light years, and this time also in the most essential and basic products. Digital transformation processes in companies and organizations, which can sometimes take years, have been accelerated to weeks and days for a simple reason: anyone who wasn’t there, with an accessible and convenient user interface and an efficient delivery service, really didn’t exist.

What will remain with us from all this? There are of course passing trends that, one can hope, will soon be a distant memory. Yes, people will continue to sit down for coffee and pastry and raise cups at major launches. But not everything is temporary: Even a $900 million exit, as we learned from the Mobit-Intel deal, can be realized without meeting. Businesses, private clients, and even conservative institutional bodies have realized that it is possible even remotely. Age groups that were much less digital dared to try new things and sometimes saw that it was good. And once we crossed this Rubicon, there will be no turning back.

Will we get through this together? Prove it

These are sensitive times. People feel vulnerable in what can truly be called life itself, from children to mortgages. It is no coincidence that technology giants are opening their digital platforms for free use, credit and insurance providers are willing to postpone payments, and even banks are skipping the overdraft here and there. Messages like “We’ll get through this together” have worn thin, but from a brand perspective, their direction is right. And you can also take it further.

“Put your money where your mouth is,” they say in American English. This imperative is especially appropriate for times like these, which remind many of other times of emergency that we have experienced in Israel. Therefore, instead of just talking over and over again about the importance of community, solidarity, and mutual support, now is the time to mobilize.

Some companies have donated to non-profit organizations near the factory. Others have sent essential equipment or gift packages to medical teams. Relevant bodies, and not just from the defense industries or science and research institutes, have joined forces to develop ventilators, testing equipment, and disinfectants. Those who continued to pay employees or support blue-and-white businesses will also be remembered favorably. Advertising this, and not in a “pretentious” and forced manner, will slide better down the throat and can also resonate with the established media. Either way, this is not the time for overly aggressive marketing.

Advertising in gaming works

Changes in consumption habits are happening right before our eyes – it is only important that our eyes remain open in order to absorb them in time. Monitoring the discourse on social networks, in the various groups, in the new features and functions that the websites and applications implement, will help us absorb the changes in time and respond to them accordingly. Large organizations maintain a dashboard for collecting and analyzing this type of data, as a platform for making faster and more informed decisions.

The other side of this is a change in organizational culture, which has also been talked about for a long time and is now becoming necessary: ​​closer cooperation within the organization and between partners on the production line. In such extreme conditions of uncertainty, when the crisis is not yet behind us and may also return in one way or another, marketing departments must work closely with finance and operations teams and prepare for more than one scenario.

Like the work environment, like the production processes, advertising and marketing must also be flexible and integrated at this time. This means, for example, entering mobile in a much more dramatic way, with an emphasis on gaming and streaming applications. Marketing professionals, even more than others, must adapt remote working methods and develop communication channels with suppliers who are able to respond remotely.

But it’s not just the medium: the message itself must also change. For example: strengthening the connection to the home and family environment, emphasizing “patriotic” values, and addressing needs and feelings that can be defined as more basic. Quite a few situations in life, including those that until recently seemed completely trivial to us, are currently irrelevant.

Attentive, flexible, and digital

It’s amazing how quickly we’ve gotten used to it. If someone had told us a few months ago that we would be able to close a deal via email, characterize products in chat, spend hours of meetings on Zoom, and even go to “Happy Hour” online with colleagues, all the while the kids are screaming in the living room – we wouldn’t have believed it. But the fact is, it’s here and now. And since it is currently unclear when commerce, leisure, tourism and aviation will return to normal, and since, as mentioned, humanity will not give up the new agenda it has been forced to adopt so quickly – now is the time to complete and regulate the transition.

From marketing, to sales, to customer service, everyone will have to embrace the new routine and make sure it works. Be more attentive, more flexible and much more digital. Now it involves discomfort, but very soon it will come out good.