The marketing landscape is changing during the COVID-19 pandemic and it is an undoubtedly hard and strange time for many industries. Being a video marketing agency we clearly see that it is more important than ever to be able to connect with your customers digitally and to keep their attention with the mass of information floating around.
It is also, however, a great time of opportunity for an innovative and sensible engagement. And while some companies are thriving with creativity in the new world order, others are not so fortunate.
Here are a few examples of great marketing campaigns that managed to still emotionally connect with their viewers while having a sensible tone of voice… And a few that we think could be a great lesson for everyone else how not to market at this time.
First with the success stories…
Forbes8
Forbes was hosting a free digital summit on March 20, 2020, under the theme of Business Resilience: Thriving in Crucial Times. The speaker roster included top experts and best-selling authors such as Chris Brogan, Rohit Bhargava, and Dorie Clark. Many of the speakers were also scheduled to speak at the SXSW this year that got canceled at the last minute.
In addition, now that the event has passed, all those who register online also get 7-day free access to Forbes8 platform with all the recordings from the summit and other great tools. This is a great marketing strategy as online events are now thriving and more people have time to self educate from home, offering free education on topical content brings great brand awareness.
Giving away a free trial of the app in exchange for an email in addition to the summit content, they also create a new group of warm leads for any future projects.
The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy
Their in-house team of literacy and education experts have created a toolkit of high-quality online resources that can be used anywhere and at any time, helping parents navigate the vast amount of available options while their kids are home from schools.
This is a perfect solution for parents with younger kids at home right now – many parents and caregivers are seeking ways to support their children’s learning outside of the classroom as they have never experienced homeschooling, or have had to educate and entertain their kids for an unlimited amount of time.
This is a great example of a brand giving back to community in line with their main cause – fighting illiteracy.
LinkedIn has opened up 16 of its existing learning courses for free. They sourced courses from their existing library to include topics that provide tips on how to stay productive, build relationships when you’re not face-to-face, use virtual meeting tools and balance family and work dynamics in a healthy way.
This is a very topical and resource smart response on how to be productive and stay connected when working from home or other remote environments as many companies encounter such work conditions for the first time.
From the point of marketing, providing free courses is also a great base for upselling individuals and companies for future education access on gated content in the future.
Example Screenshot of Courses Offered
Adobe
Adobe has opened it’s access to Creative Cloud apps to higher education and K-12 institutional customers globally for free until May 31, 2020. According to the company statement, their goal is to ensure the continuation of learning, business and to provide necessary tools for the educators in these uncertain times.
Accessible learning is a great discussion point during the pandemic and social distancing, so giving back to the community shows the brand in a very positive light.
Little Ceasars
Well known pizza brand is trying to make the time a lot of people spend in self-isolation more bearable with their pizza night ad. The ad clearly states that pizza is an essential part of our lives and everyone deserves a family night even during these times.
It hits on the main pain points of the pandemic preventative measures by stating that the pizza is not touched after it’s baked and that it is available free delivery and through a no-contact carry-out.
This approach is very straight forward, addressing the reservations people have with food delivery during these uncertain times and adapting to the new reality, bringing their brand in front of their competition.
Taco Bell
Taco Bell’s newest campaign, created remotely by the creative agency Deustch LA, also has adapted to the new preventative measures and shows brand fans embracing the drive-thru process while including sticker-sealed bags. “When you need a little light, it helps to open a window,” a voiceover says as consumers’ videos appear and soon fill up the whole screen.
The 15-second ad ends with the voiceover saying “let our drive-thru help you get through.”
They also have released a new ad since offering free tacos to bring you together when you have to be apart. People are driven by emotion, hence adding the personal touch of “we’ll help you get through this” makes the brand more relatable.
In addition, featuring real-life customers creates a feeling of familiarity and community which people crave while in self-isolation.
Dick’s: Long Live Sport by Anomaly
This ad is playing on the fitness at home trend during the self-isolation and staying healthy regardless of the circumstances.
They are also making this ad more engaging by using user-generated content, including some fail videos, creative approaches to replacing the regular sporting equipment and family fun.
This makes their ad more relatable, fun (using gamification) and shareable. Throughout their ad, they also feature suggestions to stay healthy, how physical activity releases endorphins and more showing the importance of it during the time of uncertainty.
With the attention span of the online user being low, checking off several checkmarks, this definitely is a good example of how to do your marketing.
Thrive x Artisans on Fire Agency – Stay Apart. Thrive Together.
As cannabis is considered an essential product and, like restaurants, dispensaries are allowed to stay open for delivery-only, Thrive Cannabis Marketplace had agency Artisans on Fire create a new ad for them that is more relatable for their customers at this time.
This ad taps into people’s coronavirus-related feelings and thoughts (voiceover on top of pre-existing footage of eyes of the customers) on what they’re going through right now, as well as promotes social distancing and staying home. What’s worth mentioning is that the agency created the ad completely remotely, and managed to incorporate employees into the shoot.
The agency had pre-existing footage of people meant for a different commercial, then put this together in 48 hours while working remotely.
Quick turnaround is an important factor during the time of changing landscape, and connecting with a variety of people and their emotions makes this campaign a great example of how using pre-existing resources you can build a simple yet creative ad.
Modsy: Tapping into Popular Culture
The interior designer company Modsy used their 3D rendering technology to make backgrounds for your Zoom meetings.
What makes these backgrounds different from your regular offering is that the users can choose the backgrounds from famous shows like Friends, Sex and the City, House of Cards, Seinfield and more so that meetings at home are more fun, easy and stress-free without having to worry about the clutter or sharing your own little corner with everyone on call.
With Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and other streaming services being on a rise even more than usual, tapping into the popular culture through recreating iconic show sets is a genius idea. Adding to it, not only they catered this campaign to fans of TV shows, they made it easy for people to let go a little and not worry to have their house in perfect order for once.
Recreating these sets also greatly shows off the technology that they use for regular design orders and raises brand awareness.
Inspiration at Work by 50000feet
The video created by a 50000feet agency is here to remind everyone that we can find positive even in the hardest of moments. Highlighting what motivates their employees while they work from home and what inspires them in their everyday lives, what makes them laugh, smile and makes their hearts sing.
This heartfelt piece is a prime example of positivity marketing, where it is just there to remind us that we are all in this together and we can get through this.
StayHome by Crocs x Giphy
Gifs are one of the most shared types of content on the internet today, same as memes. Especially in a time like this when people are looking to engage with people through fun and light-hearted content online.
As we know, Giphy is organised by #hashtag and specific search terms can be used to find popular content. With current situation, there’s been an unprecedented rise in the search volumes of terms like ‘workfromhome’, ‘wfh’ and ‘stayhome’ and other related terms.
Crocs campaign hijacked those popular search terms with their comedic sketches that were turned into gifs.
To increase brand awareness, they used Crocs as the main element of sketches that users could share with their friends, families and colleagues in private messages and chats. Creatively playing with the idea of everyone going a little crazy during the lockdown they created a great example of a marketing campaign tapping into popular elements of social media and remote communication.
Jack Daniel’s: With Love, Jack by Energy BBDO
Tennessee Whiskey brand came out with a new creative campaign in order to help show everyone that the human spirit is still there, even during a time when we can’t be together physically.
The ad, named ‘With Love, Jack’, shows how friends around the world are adapting to a new reality of being apart while trying to stay together.
Right now the ad space is focused on relatability, compassion and working together to get over the pandemic and this perfectly fits the headspace most of the consumers are in at this time.
Birds Eye: So, What’s For Tea? by McCann
The company collaborated with an agency McCann to create a video ad aimed at the UK customers approaching the question that a lot of us have in mind while doing our part and staying at home – what to cook for yourself or the family?
The wider scope of the campaign did not stop there and was filled with hacks to help families cope with the isolation period which is available through Birds Eye’s social media channels and website for families to download.
Using their product as a great solution for families and individuals during their time of need is a smart approach. In addition to brand awareness, they also showed their brand in a positive light by giving back to their customers.
Brands with not so good timing and how they dealt with that…
Norweigen Cruise Lines
The company spent overall 10 million this year on ads, needless to say, the ads were displayed on various media platforms and online. The most recent one was aired 11th March in the middle of the CNN outbreak about the isolation on Grand Prince cruise. The ad shows a happy family enjoying their cruise with the tagline “Feel free to feel more”. At the time when the whole world is promoting social distancing and #stayathome this type of ad campaign comes off as tone-deaf. In addition, news surfaced around the same time of ad release that the company is asking their managers to lie about the high seriousness of the pandemic. Just two days later the company suspended their cruises due to all non-essential travel being canceled, but there is no public statement on the ad or the other news.
Lysol
With the antibacterial products on the rise and most stores being out of stock, Lysol has come under fire on social media for still showing their ads on all platforms.
Many users find it insensitive to promote products that are at such high demand as it only reminds them that they are not available. More so, people find that advertising essential products implies that the company is profiting from the fear, which is not a good look from the brand perspective.
Most likely these ads were planned in their budget well before the pandemic hit, but this is a perfect example of how brands need to be able to adapt to the change.
I have no idea why they are still airing Lysol spray ads. Nobody is unaware of this product. #coronavirus #COVID19 #Lysol
— OtterBeALaw (@OttersTacos) March 28, 2020
Odd to see Lysol disinfectant wipes ads running on TV. Poor look, on many levels:
— An(ft)dy (@adnys) March 15, 2020
• reminds everyone they are out of stock
• brite + cheery ad tone is out of touch
• last thing they need to do rn is drive demand#coronavirus #COVIDー19
KFC
The brand was running an ad that has since been paused showing a compilation of people are licking their fingers while eating KFC chicken and ending it with their famous tagline “It’s finger lickin’ good”.
This ad started airing before the preventative measures were put in place and the brand failed at reacting quickly enough to stop it before receiving numerous complaints from viewers.
The timing of the ad made it come off as irresponsible and in bad taste, however, brand owned up to it and issued a statement and removed the ad from the rotation.
Again, this is an example of poor timing with previously created content, but the brand managed to recover by changing their advertising assets.
Axe
The campaign for Axe called “Don’t overthink it” was released on 9th March just 2 days before the NCAA tournament was cancelled. The ad was broadcasted on the National Basketball Association’s broadcast and showed a man imagining that he smelled so bad that the whole arena cleared out in panic and oxygen masks started dropping down.
Following the broadcast, Unilever issued a statement suspending the ad spot for this ad due to the timing and tone of voice during the pandemic.
Same as with KFC, if this ad would air at a different time it could have worked brilliantly as it is engaging, creative and funny. But taking in account the fear that the pandemic has brought over people this ad came off insensitive and tasteless.
Hershey
Brand’s latest ads in its “Heartwarming the world” campaign didn’t exactly fit in with the reality of the moment and the social distancing measures people are taking during the current COVID-19 pandemic.
The ad shows a 94 year old man Bob, who gives away chocolates and hugs other people around the city.
This advertisement came as part of the ongoing campaign and was not the first ad featuring Bob, so the brand had no intention to promote hugging and ignoring social distancing, however, their timing of release could not have been worse.
As previously mentioned brands, Hershey has since suspended the two ads featuring human interaction replacing it with product facing ads for the meantime.
To sum up…
There are many lessons to be learned when it comes to the new landscape in marketing, from both good examples mentioned above as well as the ones that made not so good choices. Adapting to the reality of increased remote work, learning and compassion for others is as important in your marketing as it is in your day-to-day life.
The main thing we want to highlight with this is that in this time of seclusion, chaos, and uncertainty, video and remote connection is more important than ever.
If you were to invest in a video campaign, now is the time. Unsure where to start? We are here to help, just connect with us using a form here to book a consultation.No
