TORONTO — With many consumers feeling anxious about not only their physical health but also the health of the economy as the world deals with the coronavirus pandemic, marketers and brand managers are faced with developing campaigns during these uncertain times.
Thinktv, the marketing and research association dedicated to the advancement of commercial TV in Canada, has compiled some resources, research and insights from industry experts to help ensure the brand decisions made by marketers today also set them up for success over the long term.
In its latest email newsletter, the organization cautions advertisers to take care during a time when emotions are currently running high.
“Insensitive messaging can be devastating to a brand, and context has rarely been more critical. Advertisers are also likely to face internal pressures to reduce marketing costs. However, research consistently shows that cutting advertising spend is a short-term gain that comes at a high cost to business results and brand health in the long-term,” reads the Thinktv newsletter.
Here are some of the marketing resources compiled by Thinktv:
- Effectiveness expert Peter Field’s research on advertising during a recession — lessons that he says are applicable here — found that while reducing advertising spend in a downturn works to address costs in the immediate term, it is far better for brands to have a “Share of Voice” at or above “Share of Market”. Short-term reductions come at the cost of long-term profitability. Check out the IPA paper Advertising in a Downturn for more of Field’s findings and related research. (IPA is the London, UK-based Institute of Practitioners in Advertising.)
- Marketing expert and columnist Mark Ritson has strong views on the detrimental effect reducing spend can have on brand health. In a recent column for Marketing Week about the potential impact of the coronavirus, Ritson admonished brands “confronted with a cut in marketing budgets, [that] the smarter play is to focus more of it on the longer-term brand-building mission. Performance marketing is going to underperform in current market conditions.” His recommendation: “Keep the brand light burning because the cost of snuffing it out for the rest of 2020 and then trying to re-ignite it next year is gigantic.”
- Sebastian Rennie, chief investment officer for GroupM Canada, quoted in Media in Canada, says that most brands should continue advertising to build loyalty. “There is lots of empirical evidence from previous cases, both economic and health, that the brands that continue to invest during uncertainty survive.”
- Ken Wong, professor of marketing at Queen’s University’s Smith School of Business, agrees and adds that brands need to keep their consumers at the forefront: “This is a time for brands to show consideration for their customers and that they’re more than just a transaction; those that do will benefit long term.” Grocery retailers such as Loblaws and Sobeys, as well as pharmacies like Shoppers Drug Mart, have taken this advice to heart by instituting “senior shopping hours”. Ford Motor Company is one of several automakers promoting new financial relief campaigns that assist customers impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. These pro-social acts will be remembered.
How is the coronavirus crisis impacting media behaviour?
With Canadians sheltering at home, Thinktv says prime-time viewing is up, but also viewership to news programming has doubled over the last two weeks, a trend Thinktv says it expects will continue as the Covid-19 crisis evolves. With live sports mostly on hiatus, viewers will turn to alternative programming to fill their days and nights of self-isolation, Thinktv says.
“And if you’re worried about not being able to reach men, don’t be — they watch a lot more than just sports. As Rennie noted of general entertainment viewing: ‘Some of those shows skew more female, but the misconception that men don’t watch general interest is just not true’,” Thinktv notes in its newsletter.
The company also made special mention of some of the efforts Canadian broadcasters have taken to make the current situation a little better, such as free previews until April 30 for channels ranging from Disney and YTV to specialty channels such as FX, CTV News Channel and CBC News Network, plus the partnership between Sportsnet and TSN to re-broadcast the entire Raptors’ championship run.
“TV will continue to be a trusted medium for news, delivering local and national news updates to Canadians around the clock,” Thinktv writes.
Additional marketing research and advice can be found on Thinktv’s website here.
