Certainty has been among the hardest things to come by in these trying times. If anything is for sure right now, it’s that no one has a crystal ball. (How’s that for circular reasoning?) Fortunately, certainty’s younger cousin, clarity, is starting to make a comeback. We are starting to see what’s been working for our agencies, our clients and their stakeholders these past weeks. Moreover, we are becoming better able to assess which of our often new – sometimes, surprisingly different – ways of operating may be keepers for the longer haul, and which are more fleeting, as the picture of a changed consumer slowly comes into focus.
Our team has been applying such learnings to plan for clients across three timeframes: now-summer, fall-holiday and 2021. There are two phenomena that we believe will endure. First, the lowering of walls between clients and agencies. We all know that the most effective and satisfying work grows from relationships steeped in openness, fairness, mutual accountability and common purpose. The experience of these past months has made our best relationships even better through more transparency, a shared sense of urgency, and not least, a warm helping of humanity.
A second and hopefully lasting change: a similar lowering of guardrails by media. We are seeing a new openness by editors and producers to collaborate with our teams to spotlight brands with the expertise, products, services and content to genuinely make lives even just a little better. One example comes by way of our client Nintendo, whose perfect for sheltering-at-home game Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been embraced for its pure, good spirited, escapist fun.
Brands earning their fair share of meaningful coverage and social media engagement are ones that have remained relevant to their evolving audiences – a topic that we were examining at 360 before the crisis hit in full force. Research on relevance that we conducted with 300 senior marketing decision-makers in early March revealed that a culture of adaptability plays a big role. One interviewee said, “The brand that is open to consistent change with the culture and environmental needs of the times is one that clearly demonstrates relevance.”
At no time in our professional lives has that been more essential. For one, Tommee Tippee, a child feeding brand and longtime agency client, has for years been masterful at maintaining relevance with an ever-shape-shifting audience of parents-to-be by embracing them as real people, not the perfect caregivers we can only dream to be. It made their sheltering-at-home pivot altogether natural, embodied in a campaign we co-created with them called #SmileOn that invites parents (current and to-be) to avail themselves of resources like on-demand yoga classes, de-stress workouts and even virtual museum tours.
All that in mind, here’s a look at our approach to the immediate-, near- and longer-terms. In many instances, we are melding all three periods through scenario planning that considers internal and external triggers that can signal returns to feasibility for certain activities, from certain types of earned media outreach to the renewal of fully integrated campaigns.
Now-Summer
Fall-Holiday
2021
Rob Bratskeir is an Executive Vice President at 360PR+, based in our NYC office. Reach him at rbratskeir@360pr.plus.