Be Different or be dead

August 1, 2020

Advertising during COVID-19: what you should and shouldn’t do

Source: Pexels

Advertising during COVID-19: what you should and shouldn’t do.

Half of 2020 has gone by, and for many parts of the world, there’s still no sign of COVID-19 going away. It has left people no choice but to adapt to the “new normal.”

Today, businesses have three choices - to pause and wait until this all passes, shut down for good, or take the challenge in stride. Some brands have had no choice but to go for either of the first two. Of course, there are still those who are fighting to keep their businesses afloat.
If you belong to the latter, whether you’re the owner of a small or big business or a marketing professional, you know that one of the areas that you need to focus on is your advertising.

Advertising or marketing a brand during the COVID-19 pandemic is tricky. It is unprecedented, so there’s no rule book that you can refer to that can tell you exactly what to do and how things will turn out. That said, here are some helpful advertising “dos and don’ts” that you can apply during the pandemic to get you started on the right track.

Advertising DOs you should follow

◾️ Stay true to your brand values — If you want to create and maintain a real connection with your customers, you have to be authentic. And this has to be reflected in your messaging. If you want your brand to stay relevant during the present crisis, you have to let your audience see what you stand for and how you respond to the challenges.

For instance, BEHR, a paint company that stands for the importance of making people feel great in their homes has acknowledged the sudden shift of a lot of workers to a work from home setting. And they also understood that many people have homes that aren’t as camera-ready.

Their move of coming up with BEHR Your Background, which is a library of styled home backgrounds available for free, says a lot about what their brand values are and what they really are all about.

◾️ Revisit your creative juices regularly — Circumstances change rapidly even amidst the pandemic, this includes market trends and consumer behavior. For this reason, it’s wise to consistently reassess your creatives as well as your messaging to make sure that you stay relevant.

Ford has received positive attention when they swapped their existing ads for ones that feature the brand’s revised car payment relief program during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with subtle reminders of how the car company has stood by their customers in past disasters.

According to Kantar’s research, people are beginning to get tired of adverts with generic messaging that look and sound the same as many others. While there’s nothing wrong about doing your part in reminding people of the importance of staying home and observing safety precautions, you have to think of ways to be memorable, too.

Heinz’s “12 million breakfasts” campaign is an example of an outstanding creative and messaging that is effective in showing people that their brand is actually doing something and looking out for others during difficult times.

◾️ Examine your web analytics and segmentation and adapt your strategy — When the landscape is as unstable as it is currently, it is imperative that you don’t just listen to your audience but that you be attuned to them. You may have to segment your audience to make sure that people get the message that would resonate with them.

One way to do this is by monitoring your web analytics to see how customer behavior is changing and then segmenting your audience based on those shifts. Some of the things that you should pay attention to are changes in streaming behaviors, psychographics, and significant lifestyle changes, among others.

◾️ Find out what media channels your audience spends time on — As mentioned above, customer behavior has changed since the pandemic. It’s evident in a number of ways, including how people consume media. Aside from the increase in mobile video and gaming category, there has also been an increase in consumption of CTV during daytime on weekends that resulted in an auction volume rise for slots between 12 noon to 4 pm and 6 pm to 9 pm. Desktop video auction volume has also risen during the pandemic.

◾️ Go for the premium options — Given the uncertainty of the world’s situation right now, consumers are more careful and are very particular with credibility. According to Adobe and YouGov’s recent survey, consumers are more likely to support services and buy products with ads that are found on premium or paid content channels.

While there is nothing wrong with using user-generated content, the survey found that adverts found on premium channels were deemed 20% to 50% more credible compared to the former. This is something that you really want to think about, especially if you are considering using only user-generated content during this crisis.

Advertising DON’Ts you should remember



◾️ DON’T assume people’s content consumption hasn’t changed — You can’t and shouldn’t assume that there haven’t been any shifts in the way your audience is consuming content, especially because so many things have changed in their lives. For one, the movie and television industry has taken an indefinite pause. Most live sports have either been canceled or postponed. And the “new normal” set up of working from home has changed the way people spend their time with their screens at home, too.

Track these changes and refocus your advertising efforts based on the results you get. If you continue to assume that your audience’s content consumption is unchanging, you are at risk of losing a substantial portion of your audience.

◾️ DON’T hastily restrict placement of your ads on COVID content — As this crisis of epic proportions continues, there are brands that have been quick to pull out their regular pre-pandemic conceptualized ads. Perhaps it’s all about sensitivity and they’re thinking about what people would say if they have ads placed within pandemic-related content. You might want to think it through before following suit, though.

Know that with the incredible amount of coverage the pandemic has been getting, blocking your ads means you’ll lose the opportunity to connect with potential customers. If you are worried about what advertising on such content would do to your brand image, you’ll be relieved to know that Integral Ad Science’s recent report shows that 78 percent of people stated that their perception and sentiment towards general ads appearing near COVID-related content would likely stay unchanged.

◾️ DON’T carelessly share insensitive or panic-inducing ads — It’s a very sensitive time and people’s emotions are triggered easily by the littlest things. Make sure that your ads are evoking positive feelings and that they don’t come across as insensitive or fear-mongering.
This is especially important if your products or services are considered non-essentials. For instance, an ad for a fast food restaurant that features people eating-out together won’t be appropriate at a time when everybody is encouraged to stay home.

When revisiting your creatives, ask yourself if there’s an element in your ad that could possibly induce panic, misinform your audience, or appear insensitive? It’s a good idea to get the opinion of your customers and your team before you launch an ad campaign to know for sure that you’re not missing anything.

Coors Light, for example, made a good decision of pulling the plug on their March Madness ad that was supposed to feature their brew as “the Official Beer of Working Remotely.” While the message is not malicious at all, it could still appear to some as if the brand was making light of the situation that many of the workers and companies are facing now.
Hershey’s has made the same decision, too, regarding their ads that focused on human interaction that would seem inappropriate during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Final words

Everybody is in a state of worry today, wondering how they can improve conversion rates and keep their brands relevant in the time of COVID-19.

Hopefully, the “DOs and DON’Ts” can give you some insight on how your advertising strategy should look like during the pandemic and help you come up with campaigns that would resonate with your audience.

— Vincent Sevilla is a professional web designer and inbound strategist for HostingFacts. His goal? To innovate ideas, create good art, and to travel to all the best places in the Philippines. You can follow him on Twitter @easyvince

• Posted 8.1.20 at 06:47 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink