The world is in great mayhem at the moment because of COVID-19 resulting in international borders being shut, share markets plummeting, and the entire country in lock-down. This has inevitably resulted in less income and less profit for brands across the board – be it the travel and tourism, oil and petroleum, food and beverage, finance and banking, etc. As the coronavirus continues to spread and put much of the U.Sn economy at a standstill, concerns about U.S falling into yet another agonizing recession are high. The last time U.S or the whole world was in such a position was during the Great Recession of 2007-2009. There are many lessons to be learned from that time in the world’s history.
If you have already slashed your marketing budgets, take a moment to reconsider. Take the example of Del Monte Foods, one of the world’s largest suppliers of fresh and prepared products, and how they successfully mitigated the crisis. At a time where all their competitors were slashing marketing budgets and avoiding any spending on promotions of any kind, Del Monte actually increased advertising and took this time to focus on an innovative product pipeline that would help them beat the recession curve and come out of the crisis stronger than before. The company designed and executed an eye-catching nude “Fruit Undressed” campaign to capture the attention of the viewers and they bravely forayed to tap a new target segment during the Great Recession. They totally reworked their brand proposition and focused on kids and their busy moms’ needs. This tactic of increasing their marketing spends led Del Monte to build their market share in a number of markets and eventually lead them to be market leaders in the segment.
During the recession, progressive companies are the ones who take time to develop new markets and invest to enlarge their customer base. This might get you wondering if you can market your business’s way out of the crisis. You have to keep in mind that the marketing that you will undertake over the next few months is likely to be very different from how you planned earlier this year when the world was a very different place. The plan will now be focused on marketing your business through the recovery period and emerge sturdy.
Read more in our recent BCA White Paper – Winning after COVID
