What Now For Your Live Brand Experience?
In early March we spoke with our clients to brief them on the upcoming impact that Covid-19 would have on their live experiences and events. They were not easy calls. We did not have all of the information. To be honest, we still don’t have all of the information. But we made decisions to halt all live campaigns. It was a tough decision that was made in collaboration with our clients for the safety of our teams and for their audiences.
Most of the projects had been in planning for months and to turn the tap off as we enter the busiest time of year would be crazy at any other time, but it had to be done. It was the right thing to do. Shortly after these decisions were made the government started the first of its restrictions. We fully agree that these should be in place.
So. What next? We work with several clients across their digital experience and social content, so it was business as usual (albeit from home) for our studio and digital strategists. It did mean that all signed off strategy had to be re vised and content recreated.
But for the live experiences, what next? We can only speak from our experience here, but we have maintained regular communications and started to look at how we can best deliver the projects based on the current climate and importantly with revised commercial targets in mind. This has been crucial. I’ve seen a lot of people try to jump to virtual events or social content immediately to try save an experience rather than to look at what the original objective was in the first place. It differs per client; we are launching a new brand for a client with an emphasis on ‘brand in hand’ sampling. We looked at all avenues and in line with the commercial strategy we have changed the timings and have a new plan that can nimbly go live when restrictions are lifted, and we feel the campaign will land appropriately. So digital wouldn’t work in this case.
We have been busy moving dates for lots of upcoming live events. The obvious issue is not knowing when we can absolutely be 100% about when we can go live. The next issue is that dates are quickly booking up at the tail end of the year. If your event needs to happen on say a Friday or Saturday, there are only so many of them left. We run a lot of corporate Summer Parties for large tech companies. There are only so many venues we can use to hold parties of this size. Timings are tricky now especially as we still can’t be certain. There’s another one that can’t really work virtually. But we have a few solutions that have worked for current clients thanks to our good relationships with venues and being smart with suggested timings.
One thing is for sure. What you had planned originally won’t happen as you had previously agreed. We need to factor in the impact that Covid-19 will have on our community. We are lucky at Honey+Buzz to be members of Tribe global, a network of independent agencies, so we were aware of the impact that the pandemic was having in Asia prior to its arrival in Europe and the US. We were briefed ahead of time and we continue to be briefed as Asia starts to reopen and start again.
“The path towards recovery is a journey. We do not just resume where we left off before COVID-19. We’ve been through an emotional experience together. We have grown and changed; our perspectives are altered.
Brands that acknowledge and embrace this sentiment through their communications strategies and recovery planning can win hearts and minds as we move towards the new normal.”
As we enter market revival we need to look at a key influences:
Consumer Sentiment
Post-recovery release
Pent-up consumption
Excited to be back to normal
Cautiously optimistic
New learned behaviours
Brand Focus
Use positivity and optimism as a business communications tool
Capture opportunities for business growth
Creative campaigns to re-engage consumers
We have started to see the following emerging trends:
Surge in healthy living and balanced lifestyle will reshape consumer decision-making and buying behavior across sectors over the next year
After months of online schooling, adaptation to e-learning sees a surge in education technology and pick up of online courses
Unmanned retail and driverless cars advance smart city technology and digital automation as people have adapted to new models and ideas
The great work at home experiment leads to growth in tools and technologies that enable remote working
Hospital and healthcare understand new needs and work to update their facilities and work practices following this experience
Silvers segment, who were forced to adapt to digital solutions, are a new force of online consumption
When this passes, which it will, we have the opportunity to come back stronger and better. As marketers, let’s lead brands into the new normal with creativity, empathy and bravery.
Start crafting your roadmap to brand recovery now.
When the time is right, be ready to launch and be ready to prosper.
- JD