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Interested in Covid’s impact on marketing strategy, I recently spoke with ex colleagues and other partners who own & run communications agencies. Some in UK and some abroad. We compared Covid experiences and stories and how the pandemic was changing business behaviour with regards to marketing.

The strongest theme? How the last year’s events (finally?) pushed marketing to the top of more businesses’ agendas.

One of my correspondents tells me they see many more clients leaving their ‘comfort zone’. They’re making decisions much, much quicker and working in a more agile way. Another sees a ‘waking up’ to an understanding of the relevance and importance of communication in an insecure and uncertain world, with new technologies on the horizon and change everywhere.

What Adobe Say…

In addition, reading Adobe’s ‘2021 Digital Trends Report‘ they’ve identified a strong Covid – inspired trend for marketing to be more involved in setting business strategy. Maybe it’s scary to think that businesses would set strategy without much acknowledgement of marketing. But after 30+ years in communications and marketing I can vouch that this was not unusual. Adobe say that with more customers moving online during the pandemic, boards are to scrambling to understand the ‘digital first’ customer. Terrible phrase, but hey…

Part of Adobe’s report is the ‘No s**t Sherlock’ finding that ‘The new normal will be digital’. That’s not new news. Personally, I’m sick of the tired paradigm that ‘digital’ is somehow a separate branch of marketing. We should talk holistically about how Covid’s impact on marketing surely continues the drive towards better & more seamless Customer Experiences. Whatever the channel and whoever the customer is.

What Adobe say that’s more enlightening is focused on the B2B sector (which accounts for 44% of UK business turnover).

‘B2B commerce increasingly will look more like B2C commerce as businesspeople continue to look for the same kind of online experience in the workplace that they have as consumers. That’s especially true as the millennial generation, who has been steeped in internet technology since childhood, becomes the biggest part of the global workforce’.

Covid’s impact on marketing – Three Key Tips

Right now most businesses are in ‘hunker down and survive’ mode. But sooner or later, we’ll be out of the tunnel and into the light. That’s when we’ll find that a lot has changed for good. Here are my three bits of advice;
a) It won’t be ‘marketing as usual’ – make sure your business gets out of its marketing comfort zone
b) Please pull up a seat for marketing a seat at the strategic table
c) Move fast, or be left behind!

Photo by Nancy Yang on Unsplash

As part of a webinar series, here at M4G we’re looking at the big themes and macro marketing dynamics that the Covid crisis has thrown up. Clearly nobody can predict whether some or all of them will be with us permanently. But as marketers, we’re considering what the Marketing New Normal will look like. Here’s our list.

1. Physical distancing will continue . Even when governments relax the rules, people will remain nervous about coming into too close proximity with others. In public spaces, but also in shops and leisure & entertainment venues.
   
2. Remote working will accelerate even more. The days of travelling every day into the office are ending. We hear that even as movement restrictions are lifted, business people are much more reluctant to travel to take face-to-face meetings if a meeting can be carried out remotely. Will we need such large offices in future?
   
3. More broadly, digital working methods and tools will be the norm. We’ve spoken for years about ‘digital transformation’ (did anyone really get what that meant?). Now it’s here and we can finally see what it looks like. Even larger companies and government bodies (who have traditionally had conservative I.T policies) will adopt more dynamic & progressive digital ways of working. Expect laws and rules around digital transformation, data & privacy to be in the news even more as we grapple with the implications for personal freedom.
   
4. Customer Data. Yes, there’s going to be even more of it to deal with. As more and more businesses move to online methods of selling, they’ll have many more ‘direct’ relationships with their end customers. This has repercussions technically, legally and not least from a marketing perspective. Importantly, lots of businesses will need a proper CRM platform & strategy.
   
5. Supply Chains. Will businesses pivot back to having more localised supply chain partners? The crisis has shown that sourcing product from halfway across the world can be very fragile. Furthermore, when key components can’t get through, we miss deadlines.
   
6. There’ll be ‘Bigger Government’. There already is of course. Governments across the world are intervening in the workings of the free market on a scale that we haven’t seen since the 30’s & 40’s. For economies to recover, this looks set to continue for years to come.
   
7. We’ll start listening to Experts again. The last few years has seen a swing away from politicians taking account of ‘Experts’. A rejection of expert advice whenever it didn’t fit a political narrative or stance. In the Covid crisis, the voices of Experts are suddenly louder again and are unlikely to be silenced for a while.
   
8. There’ll be a search for Authenticity. In the UK, arguably the biggest brand out there right now is the National Health Service. It has gone from an ignored and sometime vilified monolith, to a trusted saviour. Brands (and individuals) that are false, trivial or in any way fake will be called out a lot more.
   
9. So might your ‘Values’ become more important? From a marketing point of view, have clearly expressed Brand Purpose which resonates with customers. It’s essential.
   
10. We will live our lives outdoors more. The crisis has seen an exponential rise in the use of outdoors spaces, in walking and cycling. Outdoor living will continue.
    
11. Physical Shops will decline. The use of online shopping & home delivery has jumped and we won’t be going back. Interestingly, a survey found that Amazon’s percentage share of online trade has actually declined slightly as loads of independent business have been forced by the crisis to create an online delivery offer from scratch. (Source Klaviyo Marketing Automation Survey of 4000 UK & US shoppers, Mar/April 2020)
    
12. There’ll be a search for ‘Community’. In a direct repost to Margaret Thatcher’s 1987 comment that; ‘…there is no such thing as society’, UK PM Boris Johnson said in a crisis speech that there is. The crisis has shown up those who have tried to behave ‘individually’ or seemingly selfishly.
    
13. Finally, FUN will be back in fashion! Clearly as soon as we’re able, all ages will want desperately to start enjoying life again!

No doubt more issues and trends will emerge in the coming weeks & months. One thing is for sure – there will be a Marketing New Normal and as marketeers we have some huge challenges ahead of us to adapt & implement.

Photo: Cheng Feng, Unsplash

Let’s talk about partnership branding! At every brand workshop we run, we ask participants about brands they dislike (sorry Ryanair) and brands they love. At workshops in the UK, the most frequent ‘love’ brand is John Lewis. We hear about great staff, great service and its ‘partnership’ business model. Our participants also recite John Lewis’s ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’ price promise. All good you’d think?

However all’s not well in UK high street retail and John Lewis is not immune. Just this week, the business announced its lowest staff bonus since 1953. Times are tough. But of course John Lewis won’t take this lying down. New branding came in last autumn, with the ‘Partners’ element of the business front and centre. A major part of the strategy is further focus on ‘exceptional’ service, delivered through the JL ‘Partners’ (ie their great staff). But there’s one element of the service delivery that regular users may have noticed, that potentially runs counter to this.

Concession areas and partnership branding are a key element of department store retailing and of course John Lewis has them. So with a strategy and brand experience based firmly on delivering exemplary service, it’s essential that concessions do this too. Based on two personal examples, this may be a threat to John Lewis’s approach.

1. Trying to return an unused product to the Netspresso partner brand store in John Lewis, the response was this was impossible as the goods were ‘perishable’. We tried to talk to JL’s management, but were told this was impossible. Finally, we were threatened with security staff being summoned..!
2. Buying make-up, we struggled to make ourselves heard over the pounding music from the newly adjacent MAC make up counter. The lady serving explained she had no control over the volume, that’s just what was agreed

In conclusion; there’s nothing anything intrinsically wrong in brand partnerships. But there are pitfalls around balancing relative brand values, behaviours and image. Lose even a modest amount of control and you put your own brand in a vulnerable position. Unsatisfied customers won’t unpick the nuances of which brand in the partnership delivered the poor experience – both brand partners will be tarred with the same brush!

Photo by Min An from Pexels

Over the years we’ve worked in lots of B2B markets with many products that (on the surface at least) come across as, well, shall we say ‘uninteresting’? More often than not, B2B products are complex, technical and ‘difficult’. Confronted with this, it can be hard to create a killer B2B value proposition. It’s the perennial challenge of B2B marketers; how to deal with this ‘product boredom’ when it comes to branding.

Don’t despair. Our view is that there’s no better opportunity to up your brand’s game when all around you is bland and boring. The less ‘interesting’ the product area, the easier it is to stand out. What’s required is a detailed approach to unpicking the details of your product’s real benefits to customers. This can often be hidden and frequently unexpected! Read how we do this, here.

Consumer marketers know that they have to stand out or die. Luckily for them, they have more glamorous and interesting features & benefits that are easier to unpick. And thus easier to leverage into a great value proposition. Undoubtedly it’s more challenging in the B2B space. We have technical products & services, which can be hard to differentiate and there are complicated stories to tell. But if you like a challenge (we do!) and you can dig deep enough into the soul of your products & markets (we do that too!), then you can create a B2B value proposition and brand story that really cuts through.

One great tip is to talk in real depth to your colleagues who are product experts. We’ve found some amazing insights buried away in the minds (and presentations) of engineers and sales people, for example. Here at M4G, the subject of B2B value proposition is really close to our hearts and we’ll be returning to it in future posts!

Photo; martina-misar-tummeltshammer-103131-unsplash