13 April 2020 marked 60 days since the first coronavirus death in Spain. I like to think of it as the beginning of the crisis, as the arrival of a fatality turns any conflict into a crisis. Since then, so many things have happened, at an accelerated speed, that it seems like years have passed. Companies, like sailing ships under extreme conditions, have been weathering the storm as best they can, some with well-structured plans, others following their intuition, and all looking sideways at their competitors.
The first frontier was communication with internal audiences: how to manage risks, what management and communication policies were best to unite the company around its purpose, how to promote consensus around future plans. Today that question is more than outdated, and what concerns us is: what communication policy do I follow with my clients? Do I suspend my advertising campaigns, maintain them, or modify them in depth? What do clients expect from me?
We have to thank Edelman, the American consultancy firm that every year gives us the Confidence barometerIt has provided us with a first survey of consumer preferences and expectations, which gives many clues as to not only where the wind is blowing, but also where the current is taking us.
I will try in these lines to summarise the results of that survey, adding some comments of my own, in case they help in decision-making in the coming weeks.
The survey I am referring to was conducted from 23-27 March 2020 in 12 countries: Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, South Korea, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States and the United States. The responses of 12,000 consumers shed a lot of light on their reaction to the marketing and advertising of their usual companies during the crisis.
The first finding contradicts what many companies have done, which is simply to cut their advertising. This is shown in a survey by Interactive Advertising Bureau to marketers last month: almost a quarter of brands discontinued their paid campaigns in the first and second quarters of the year.
However, consumers surveyed say they want to know about your brands. The advertising blackout is not a good idea. We have to stay there. We are in an ecosystem, where everything depends on everything. If a plant disappears from our environment, the bees that feed on them will die, and after three or four more steps, the big cats will die. You don't get out of a crisis by promoting selfishness, by saving as much as you can, but by thinking about the system. If the media are suddenly deprived of their advertising revenue, we will lose a fundamental element for the way out of the crisis: confirmed information and the control of power.
What has changed is what they expect to hear from them. It is not primarily information about products and services, but first and foremost information about the pandemic. Yes, they consider companies as reliable sources of information, almost on a par with the media, and more so than public authorities. Consumers welcome companies' information initiatives that help people to understand the threat of the virus and to protect themselves.
Second, they want to know what "their" brands are doing to respond to the pandemic. They expect them to be proactive, collaborative in a common cause that far exceeds the capacity of civilian authorities to respond. 63% of respondents thought that companies had a leading role in defeating the coronavirus; 55 per cent perceive that companies have responded more effectively and diligently than their own governments; and 86 per cent of respondents see their brands as the safety net that protects those that public authorities cannot reach.
These data show, on the one hand, consumer confidence in businessThe boundary between public and private sector, between the former and the latter, is blurring. The boundaries between the public and private sectors, between the former and the latter, are blurring. Business is at the front line of the response to an emergency such as this pandemic.
Consumers' views on a company's duty to "do the right thing" are illustrative. Ninety per cent say that companies should be willing to suffer substantial financial losses to protect people's livelihoods and financial security.
In other words, there is a consensus that these are not welcome initiatives but at the mercy of what the company freely decides, but a real obligation. Standing on the sidelines and watching the bulls from the sidelines would be seen as a kind of betrayal. In fact, 71 per cent of respondents vow to punish companies that put profits before people (the opposite of good crisis management practice, which says "people before profit") by withdrawing their trust forever.
This is similar to what companies in places where there has been a natural disaster are asked to do: to open their facilities to host displaced people, to help with rescue work, etc.
Third comes information about your products and services. They have to be visible. Consumers need to be kept informed about how to get what they need.where to buy them, what has changed in their availability, etc. This is particularly relevant for basic necessities, but this description covers much more than just food. Computers and tablets are essential for teaching young people at home; fitness equipment, supply of spare parts for equipment of all kinds, etc.
But the approach is different. It is more about meeting a real need today and now, rather than selling. Respondents put it bluntly: 54 per cent say they purposely ignored all new product communications during the crisis, unless the product in question had been designed specifically for the severe challenges in the face of the pandemic.
So the relationship is less "click to buy" and more "here's what we can do today to help you". There is more information and less selling. Or, at least, there is less selling today, in the hope that this benevolence grabbing now will be rewarded later, when all this is over. The survey confirms this: 65 percent of consumers surveyed indicated that their subsequent choices would be based on the behaviour of brands during the crisis. I think I am right in predicting a boom in responsible companies that "behaved well", like those after a war or conflict.
Respondents' answers also highlight that the tone is the message. Communication and marketing in these circumstances cannot be alarmist.The reason for this is that we are dealing with an invisible and largely unknown enemy, and therefore disproportionate reactions to fear hurt people. But neither can they be light-hearted: an excessively lighthearted and joking tone is also counterproductive. Consumers reject irony, levity and superficiality.
An empathetic, compassionate and constructive tone is therefore necessary, showing humanity and humility. Show closeness, and speak through spokespersons who are perceived to be committed to the company and its customers. This is not the time to use celebritiesespecially if their life circumstances are so far removed from reality (confinement to mansions with infinity pools, surrounded by their pets and declaring their suffering at not being able to get out of their several-hectare garden) that they would make the lack of harmony of these privileged people contagious for the company. Bosses, middle managers and normal employees are better spokespersons because they are more authentic.
Good stories that are welcome are offers of free or discounted products and services in essential services (connectivity, for example, or beds for new hospital ICUs); changes in production lines, to create equipment needed in these circumstances (masks, respirators, disinfectants, etc.); help for sectors most in need, such as hotels for displaced health workers, food for hospitals, elderly centres and home care networks for the poor; ideas for using objects in new ways, such as hotels for displaced health workers, food for hospitals, elderly centres and home care networks for the poor; ideas for using objects in new ways.); aid to sectors most in need, such as hotels for displaced health workers, food for hospitals, centres for the elderly and home care networks for people without resources; ideas for using the objects in a new way, and solving a current need; and monetary donations.
I do not give examples, from Spain and abroad, because they are there for all to see. I only ask the media to keep talking about them, because they are stories that give hope. But I would like to highlight not only the contribution of large banks and companies, which number in the millions, but also that of SMEs and individuals. The key in crises is capillarity. Single controls do not work, because life is so complex that it is impossible to foresee everything. It is a return to the five-year plans of Soviet communism. What is really effective is to set objectives from the top and let everyone do what they can. A crisis requires a lot of delegation of powers to those on the front line, and understanding the mission of those at the top as one of support for those at the bottom, and not the other way around.
But be careful: the aid has to be in concentric circles. It makes no sense to throw out the staff and then donate food to a hospital, because it shows that the latter is just make-up, hollow and false. The first thing to help is the staff themselves, and then their stakeholders: giving more generous terms to suppliers, etc. Punishment for brands that want to profit from the crisis and communicate to that end will come not only later, but now: 33 per cent of respondents said they were already punishing those brands by stopping using them and convincing others, through social media, to stop using them as well.
I close by thanking Edelman again for the service it has rendered to the business world with this timely survey, and with a prediction that is more of an earnest plea. Experts point out that if going into lockdown was difficult, the logistics of coming out of lockdown are even more complicated. Companies would do well to think about how to do it in a phased manner, thinking through all scenarios and knowing how to communicate clearly and persuasively. In their hands, more than in those of the government, lies the success of an operation that is vital for a return to normality.
Yago de la Cierva
Professor at IESE Business School and Director of Crisis Communication at Proa Comunicación.