COVID-19 - Research and insights round-up
Summary
It is important to frame the current COVID-19 outbreak relative to previous epidemiological or economic crises such as SARS (2003), the global financial crisis (2008) and the lesser MERS epidemic (2012). An overriding and quite obvious message from both industry reports and public opinion derived from social conversations is that where businesses are continuing to communicate during the pandemic they must not be seen to be profiteering from the crisis. It is clearly important that brands remain receptive to requests from consumers for information during this time – with customer service remaining key – research from business analytics firm Marketscience, based on analysis of economic downturns over the last 50 years, showing that brands that focused on customer satisfaction and service win out following recession. In times of difficulty and trauma, people naturally gravitate towards the familiar, underpinned by the increasing role government and state are playing in our everyday lives. From the report ‘Advertising in a Downturn’ a summary of a seminar presented by the IPA analysing performance of brands following the economic downturn in 2008 a number of key statistics were revealed - A strong correlation between a brand’s SOV and ad spend and its level of ‘bonding’ with consumers – key bonding metrics being popularity, affinity, leadership, differentiation and price – all suffering significantly if brands go silent for extended periods – Kantar Millward Brown Supporting a brand in other ways if broader reach mediums like TV are pulled back can help prolong resonance of campaigns and messaging – maintaining total brand communication awareness (TBCA) levels directly correlates with maintained brand health metrics – Kantar Millward Brown Business success in the long term measured by Return on Capital Employed (ROCE) and market share in the first two years after a downturn was generally closely linked to relative maintenance of ad spend during that period – Malik PIMS