The coronavirus pandemic is likely to go down as one of the most significant events of the last 100 years. Brands need to prepare for the post coronavirus world. Things are going to be different than they were at the end of 2019, and we need to be ready to adapt to these differences. However we don’t know how long drawn that is going to be.

A new study found that more than half of all brands are considering delaying their campaigns and slashing budgets, as they try and figure out exactly what they’re faced with. But staying quiet could create even more problems than putting a foot wrong.

Brand salience has always played a key role.

If your brand is maintaining radio silence now, at what point is it no longer insensitive to start putting out messaging again? If it takes until the middle of the year for things to start feeling “normal” again, your customers could forget about your brand entirely. But this does not mean saying what you have always been saying.

Then the million dollar question arises.
What can brands do in the interim?

The first order of business is to shift focus immediately, from “how much I can sell?” to “what can I do to help?”. Brands should be abandoning any preoccupation with “what do we want?” and think about “what do we all need?”.

In India the consumer expectation is about offering a positive perspective.

And there are few good examples already.

Fashion and beauty giants LVMH and L’Oréal are producing hand sanitizers in response to the shortage of medical equipment and supplies around the world. Inditex, owner of Zara, will offer its factories and logistics teams to work with the Spanish government for distributing masks to patients and medical workers.

The Body Shop donated care packages to local hospitals for NHS workers in the U.K. On American soil, the brand prepped and delivered “approximately 30,000 units of cleansing products to shelters and senior citizen communities”.

Chanel, the French fashion brand will start producing face masks and medical gear while its normal production has paused, to even out the shortage of supplies. Burberry is supplying 1,00,000 surgical masks for healthcare workers. Burberry is transforming its Yorkshire trench coat factory into a station for making nonsurgical gowns and masks for British patients.

Underwear brand Jockey announced it will donate personal protective equipment (PPE) — including gowns, N95 masks, and scrubs — to health care workers and first responders fighting the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. The Crocs brand, makers of the polarizing lightweight clog often sported by restaurant staffers, hospital workers and rapper Post Malone, announced that they are providing free footwear to healthcare workers helping combat the coronavirus in the US.

Mercedes and Tesla are among the car manufacturers trying to see if their production lines can be turned into ventilator production lines.

Here are a few from India:

Kia Motors India pledged Rs. 2 crores to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister’s Relief Fund to provide immediate and long-term relief against the coronavirus outbreak in the state.

Domino partnering with ITC Aashirvaad

You get the idea.

We hope that brands and companies are introspecting and talking about how they could repurpose and adapt what they make or do to be of greater use to the society in these trying times. This pandemic is forcing all of us to consider the greater good over self-interest. And that’s not a bad thing.

If our products and services aren’t vital or of use in a pandemic, what else can we make or do?

Decision-making of this nature requires confident leadership. Partnership, lateral thinking and working for the greater good is what will get us through this.

Brands should even be prepared to change category, even if it’s for a short-term. It’s necessary to think about people and what they are going through, and really think about core capabilities and expertise.

There’s a need to develop sensitivities about what is the larger ask in this moment. The need of the hour for brands is to develop agility and rise to the occasion.

Because right now and for the foreseeable future, it’s not about what the world can do for us, but about what we can do for the world.

And… action!

(An insightful article by Prathish Nair, Chief Brand Architect of Transcend Brand Consulting)