Global Atlantic Financial Group - Leaders Insights Summer 2020 | Page 7

LIKE THE rest of you, this crisis has me glued to my
phone. Not only are we taking in every news alert and every
new health recommendation, we’re working remotely and
attempting to keep business running. It’s an insane amount
of highly intense information to process.
WHICH IS WHY POORLY TIMED ADS
ARE MUCH MORE LIKELY TO UPSET ME.
IT’S TIME FOR EVERY BRAND TO CANCEL
THEIR MARKETING AUTOMATION.
Here’s an example. A Ladder Insurance ad popped up
in my Instagram feed a couple days ago. It’s a picture of
a father and son in an airport security line. The message
is you don’t have to put your life on hold to buy Ladder
Insurance.
In an ordinary time, this ad’s worst sin is that it’s boring. In
an extraordinary time—say, when airport lines are clogged
with people returning from overseas, and the very idea of
standing in a crowd makes you shudder—this ad is almost
offensive. Funny a week ago does not equal funny now.
That’s just one example, and it’s so easy to fix. Just cancel
your automation, right? But there are other companies
committing worse brand sins.
Lucky Brand, a clothing store based out of L.A., e-blasted
me with this headline: “Trip cancelled? Stay-cay > Vacay”.
The email has a photo of a bed with the word “getaway”
crossed out and replaced with “staycation.”
Setting aside how horrible the word “staycation” is all by
itself, the tone-deafness of this ad is almost unreal. Our
current global crisis and the isolation of people all over
America and the world isn’t a “staycation”—it’s an uneasy
new reality that we’re all navigating together. Overtly
salesy or pushy messages like this represent the easiest
way for a brand to do themselves in.
Instead, every brand needs to take a page from my friend
Carrie Trabue of Carrington Legal’s playbook. She runs a
legal recruiting firm and recruits head counsel for all kinds
of organizations.
She sent a thoughtful email to her list about how
to effectively conduct screening interviews via
videoconferencing. That’s helpful— a lot of companies are
adjusting to a new long-distance reality.
Do you need help crafting an authentic message that
isn’t tone deaf during a crisis? Let’s chat!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Deb Gabor is the founder of Sol Marketing,
a consultancy that has led successful strategy
engagements since 2003 for global brands
like Dell, Microsoft, and NBCUniversal, and for
numerous digital brands, including Allrecipes,
Cheezburger, HomeAway, and many more.
A leading expert on brand disasters, she
is the author of Branding Is Sex: Get Your
Customers Laid and Sell the Hell out of
Anything, and Irrational Loyalty: Building A
Brand That Thrives In Turbulent Times. Deb
has been featured in USA Today and other
major publications. A displaced Midwesterner,
Deb currently lives in Austin, Texas, but
travels frequently to help her clients build
bulletproof brands. Visit DebGabor.com
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