FROM WHERE I SAT
Marketing Lessons
From The Corona
Virus Pandemic
By Robert Wamai
A
lot has been written about the
Corona Virus pandemic and I
would not be surprised if you
are asking yourself; ‘what difference or
freshness are you bringing to the party’?
From where I sit absorbing content that is
available in the media, blogs and webinars
I deciphered useful lessons for those of
us in marketing which I would like to
share. As always, I will cite the sources
of information most of which serve as
examples to strengthen and provide
credence to the conclusions I draw.
Sieving through the different sources of
information I came up with some lessons
which I hope will be useful in providing
food for thought as we adapt our plans
to this new normal or at best actionable
points that marketers can implement.
But first things first: Even before the
pandemic, businesses were, and still
are, operating in a rapidly changing
environment and four reasons for this
come to mind. The first is that any product
(including services) is operating in a highly
competitive business arena. The era of
monopoly is over. Secondly the consumer
is better educated and more informed and
the internet, especially social media, has
made them powerful than ever before.
There has been a drastic shift of power to
the consumer.
Thirdly the growth in the number
of communication channels, though
positive in some aspects, has increased
cost of media buying and complicated
media planning. The consumer is today a
moving target and one has to use multiple
channels to reach them. It is likely that a
consumer confronted with more choices
and bombarded with messages from a
multitude of sources may end up confused
or occasionally frustrated. Marketers are
therefore being increasingly called upon
to provide clarity to the consumer and
also internally within their organisations.
No matter how good one is at planning
and seeing round corners we cannot
be prepared enough nor plan for every
eventuality or outcome. Once in a while,
a curved ball will be thrown at us and
we will have nothing in our armoury or
in our memory to tap into for a favourable
response. As they say ‘Man plans
and God smiles’. Thus even our best laid
plans will go awry.
Lastly in this interconnected world and
to borrow from Baker Magunda, CEO
Guinness Nigeria Plc while opening
his presentation during the last Nairobi
Marketers’ Night on March 6th 2020,
‘everything that happens in the world
affects your brand’.
And then Corona happened; throwing not
just the spanner but the whole tool box
in the works. Though they say ‘kifo cha
wengi arusi’, it does not feel like it. This
one has ‘no playbook, and we can’t see the
end game’ (Sunny Bindra). The measures
put into place to stop the spread, working
from home, containment and curfews
have had consequences which have
affected not just marketing but our lives
in total. To stay above water organisations
have had to downsize, reduce salaries
among other measures that have meant
a shrinking economy resulting in lower
consumption. Worse still no one knows
for sure when this will be over. The future
is unpredictable. People and businesses
thrive best and plan for a future that offers
some certainty. As Robert Shaw put it in
his Daily Nation article tilted Uncertain
Future, Corona ‘has captured our time,
attention and diminished our capacity’.
Sunny Bindra’s book, titled ‘Business
Unusual’ could never have been more
spot on given the unusual happenings in
life! As Vogue magazine aptly captured
it ‘the containment measures are really a
reduction of our civil liberties, overnight’
and they are forcing us to ‘rethink our
ingrained social practices such as cheek
kissing, hugging, and hand shaking.’ One
thing is for sure, we are in it for longer
than we would like and there will be a new
normal after it’s all over. My take is
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