COVID-19 IMPACT ON GLOBAL LEADERSHIP
In 2020 the nature of leadership is changing. On a global stage New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern has been praised for her swift and decisive response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which sees her country now considered virus free. Elsewhere, leaders like US president Donald Trump and UK prime minister Boris Johnson have drawn criticism for failing to act quickly enough to prevent the spread of the disease.
These contrasting approaches to leadership during a global pandemic open up an interesting debate about how marketing leaders are reacting to the crisis within their own businesses. One thing is for certain, leadership is being re-evaluated under the harshest of spotlights. A good leader is transparent and has clear business goals. You need to be able to listen and to be genuine, authentic, passionate, supportive and trustworthy, rolling up your sleeves and showing what good looks like.
DRIVING GROWTH THROUGH THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS
Your Marketing Team lists a few pointers on how to grow your brand during Covid-19 as opposed to becoming stagnant:
- Continuously staying in touch with your prime prospect: Both through communication and distribution – and avoid going silent.
- Ensure your brand is relevant: Remain relevant and talk to your audiences current needs, wants and pains (problems).
- Maintain competitive advantage: Continue communicating your point of difference – giving the customer reasons that matter to them (reason to care and reason to believe) when learning about your product or service.
- Stay on track: Remain strategic in your planning and don’t act hastily from fear, uncertainty etc.
- Be consistent: Avoid unnecessary changes, whilst keeping your brand fresh and interesting
So, if this is what good looks like – if this is what marketing practitioners should be aiming for – then what does this mean for how marketers should be responding to the rapidly evolving challenges that the Covid-19 virus presents us with? With Your Marketing Team, innovation paired with incessant adaptability is what helps keep our clients’ businesses afloat as we help navigate them to greener pastures during these pressing times.
CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT RIGHT NOW
Keeping a close eye on customer behaviour and finding a means to make everyday life more manageable is what sets any marketing thought leader apart. Covid-19 has imposed many changes in normal everyday business from the way we work, consumer behaviours and media consumption. With so much change in such a small period of time, it’s normal to feel overwhelmed however, we must not lose sight of our end objectives. Your Marketing Team believes that the best ideas are born when individuals work together – where collaboration with clients and partners sets the tone for successful marketing and innovative decision making. Here are a few things we are able to connote from the arrival and hopeful worldwide departure of Covid-19:
- Globally, companies are expected to worry about their employees’ health, wellbeing and to favour flexible working
- Many consumers are suggesting that brands should focus on positive messaging during this time. For example, about how your brand is helpful in the new every day, keeping them informed about your business’ reaction to the new situation and offering a reassuring tone
- Equally, a brand should know what to do or say, without exploiting the Covid-19 situation to promote your business whereby a good start would be to reduce or avoid humour
- Unsurprisingly, media consumption has shifted gears as more people stay home. Under lockdown, web browsing has grown +70%, linear TV viewing increased by +63% and social media +61% globally – this all gives strong indicators of how to adapt your business’ advertising efforts (According to the first report from Kantar’s Covid-19 Barometer – a survey of more than 25,000 people across 30 markets, undertaken in mid-March).
THERE IS NO EASY ANSWER RIGHT NOW
How do marketers react to these seismic societal, economic and political changes?
Firstly, we need to acknowledge that many businesses are currently faced with some difficult commercial decisions. Some of which are about preservation and survival and the implications these could potentially hold on the lives of their employees. There is no easy or right choice to make and this is most prevalent for brands in hard-hit industry verticals like travel, entertainment and sports, as well as those with macro exposure. Most brands are delaying advertising spend, product launches, key hiring and even digital transformation investment – ironically though, at a time when those same brands need this investment most.
The inevitable temptation to cut budgets and investments like the ones illustrated is easy to understand. But equally, businesses who maintain their marketing efforts during times of crisis, will be stronger and more relevant into recovery.
Any business who has instigated a retraction in operations or marketing resources right now, must understand that their actions – although seemingly necessary in the short-term – will make it harder for the business to bounce back when more positive conditions prevail. Your Marketing Team offers marketing resources and executive leadership as well as a series of assessments and recommendations to equip your brand with a winning marketing strategy [Insert backlink to Marketing Strategy landing page/about page on YMT website]. We understand that budget cuts are inevitable due to Covid-19, therefore let’s embrace ‘The New Normal’. You don’t need to hire a marketing manager full time – we offer marketing leadership at a fraction of the cost, embodying a holistic and specifically tailored approach to suit your exact business needs.
KEY PRINCIPLES FOR SUCCESSFUL MARKETERS
We believe that there’s never been a better time to remember the basic principles of marketing leadership. As a foundation, these will remain assured and constant throughout these challenging operating conditions imposed by Covid-19. From a more operational perspective, we would advocate that businesses also continue to develop their capabilities in harnessing the rich ingredients that make modern marketing so great and effective – technology and digital media remain essential enablers of these principles. This will present opportunities for test and learn approaches to the deployment and optimisation of media, data and content – something that can create exponential value to the marketing function now and in the future. Of course, each brand and business operates within a unique set of market conditions, and so we have identified three points of interconnected guidance to help marketers navigate the many choices in front of them right now:
- Listening and Learning Mindset Understanding your audience is central to any business. It’s how you will find the key insights, ideas and permissions from the people that you are looking to address. This is critically relevant at a time where Covid-19 is having a significant impact on the lives of global citizens. At a practical level, this can mean monitoring changes to customer values, as well as improving real-time listening to detect shifting customer sentiment. But this is also about attitude and being open and reactive to changing needs or motivations, which can be quite extreme in times of crisis. A listening and learning mindset and approach assists in recognising the unique challenges that all consumers currently face. Now is the time for creativity, innovation and out-of-the-box thinking. [Insert backlink to a page on YMT website – still to be determined which one]
- Clear Bold Leadership Being clear about what your brand stands for and delivering this through assertive action feels like a requirement right now. Embody and live your brand values and purpose, delivering this through a lens that inspires confidence and logic to the situation. A great way to implement this is by communicating with empathy and commitment to both customers and employees during these uncertain times, leaving no room for doubt on how you intend to operate in the market. Some of the best marketing right now is about simply showing your teams that you care and have their interests at heart, both now and over the longer-term, something that we pride ourselves on at Your Marketing Team. Managing and addressing teams – whether this be furloughing or shifting roles and resources to reflect changes in demand and requirement – is critical for any marketing leader. Making a bold statement of leadership to the market is another expression of understanding and action at a time of uncertainty; let us assist in implementing these necessary transitions by booking a FREE consultation here.
- Long-term Thinking With drastic mentality and financial changes amongst consumers being experienced resultant of Covid-19, it is very likely that considerations will move towards essential rather than discretionary purchases. Specific industry variances aside, this is a period where brands should look to focus more resources on longer-term brand building activities – that critically deliver the right tone of voice, message and behaviour to reflect the sentiment of audiences through these challenging times. With the help of Your Marketing Team, combining this marketing approach with an objective to maintain share-of-voice and share-of-market, one will reap a longer-term improvement in profitability that will have outweighed any short-term savings delivered by cost cutting reactions and implementations.
LEAD THE CHANGE
What’s important for marketing is to ensure that it does not take a back seat. We are operating businesses within a time of immense change, where that change needs to be translated into relevant, confident and positive brand behaviour that builds stronger and authentic bonds with its customers. This is a time for marketing leaders to think out-of-the-box and be more than ever the engine of business growth and innovation.
