Brand Leaders Share 4 Pandemic Pivots Sticking Around in 2021

In the past, December has been typically reserved for end of year messaging and strategizing for exciting new campaigns. But with the pandemic still in full swing, it is clear that “contingency plans” will most likely still have a place in our strategy decks for the foreseeable future. However, in typical fashion, the resilient marketing community has been quick to react, pivot, and adjust. Read on to find out how these marketers refreshed their strategies amid COVID-19 and what changes they think will stick post-pandemic. Also, be sure to check out the eight trends marketers are most excited about as we head into the new year. Elevating the Role of Your Community “Our teams are constantly listening. We are working hard to figure how we bring the experiences we’ve brought to our players at conventions and through our own events online. We are also leaning in more to elevating our community’s content more than we have in the past.” Justin Taylor, Senior Director of Digital Marketing, Activision When our studios were shut down, we actually leaned into our community to shoot the content for us in the safety of their homes, of course. That sparked even more dialogue on our community and among the fellow community members who loved seeing themselves as the face of it. … We all know that [people] don't share ads. And the great thing about community, when done right, is that people are likely to share that experience and they, in fact, become unofficial spokespeople for you.” Angelic Vendette, Global Head of Social Media Marketing and Influencers, Stitch Fix “The strategy behind the WhatsApp brand hasn’t changed. What has shifted is the usage behavior of our consumers (e.g., video is now becoming equally as important as messaging), and the value of the product (and its respective features) at a moment in time when we are physically apart more than ever. We have tried to reflect that in the latest chapters of our campaign. ... Now, and post-pandemic, we’ll continue to focus on stories that display these raw, real, and intimate moments in a way that resonates, on and offline.” Eshan Ponnadurai, Global Head of Brand and Consumer Marketing, WhatsApp Behaving like a Publisher “I think something that everybody can do is to double down, to triple down social listening and the routine of a publisher. We're getting really close to having the routine of a publisher. So every day, we have teams sending us reports of everything that is trending worldwide and what is really driving a need back in culture. Then, we have brand meetings to see whether or not it makes sense for some of our brands to participate in those conversations.” Marcel Marcondes, U.S. CMO, Anheuser-Busch “When Covid-19 hit, my partner and I looked at each other and said, ‘why don't we become a publishing platform?’ We obviously have a great bank of films to draw upon, so we started there and then overnight we reached out to our phenomenal outdoor ambassadors who were up to create all sorts of content. From Lunch ‘n’ Learns to How To’s and so on, we had 50 days’ worth of content off the bat.” Paulie Dery, VP of Brand and Creative, YETI Being in Lock-step With Culture “When COVID-19 hit, we knew that we had to pivot to support the community experiencing heightened levels of anxiety, grief, loneliness, depression, etc. Within 48 hours, we spun up a free resource page for our community in the U.S. and localized the resources for our global audiences. The success of that initiative showed us the importance of evolving our content quickly to meet the moment.” Katie Shill, Senior Director of Marketing, Calm “A good example of this ability to move deftly and also contribute to culture for door dash is the work we did at the onset of COVID with the open for delivery campaign. … it was just like this magical moment that followed, which was really like this tweetstorm of most of the major QSRs and hundreds of local restaurants jumping in to literally encourage people to order from their competitors. And I think like the most magical moment was our friends over at Postmates and Uber eats, jumped in to really remind everyone that we're all in this together and that we have this role to play, to preserve the vital thing within our communities. And again, I go back to like, this idea is like, if, if you don't know how to move fast, you can't move on opportunities like this. And ultimately like, this is an opportunity for the brand, but it really was something that meant something for culture.” David Bornoff, Head of Consumer Marketing, DoorDash Flexibility as Mission-Critical “Clearly traveling internationally is very challenged, but in many parts of the world, it’s okay to travel domestically and that’s what we’re focused on. So that’s really has been our key focus clearly, still very challenging because demand is fairly much down from where it used to be. ... And I think flexibility is probably the most important thing. The role of marketing is to accelerate momentum and when there is no momentum, there is no point in doing marketing. So, you really have to adapt and become flexible.” Arjan Dijk, CMO of Booking.com “The pandemic has seismically impacted the live sector which is a hugely important part of the music business. Our Video Production team used video conferencing to reinvent how they deliver shoots… sending simple camera, lighting and audio packages to artists along with floor plans tailored to their homes. The teams and artists adapted their skills for the situation, enabling ‘self-shot’ content with production value.” Dorothy Hui, SVP of Digital and Audience Development, Sony Music UK’s 4th Floor Creative

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Brand Leaders Share 4 Pandemic Pivots Sticking Around in 2021

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