For wellbeing marketers, media and influencers, the COVID-19 situation brings many questions:
- What is appropriate to say and do as a brand at this sensitive time?
- How are media and influencers changing the way they’re working?
- What role can my brand play?
As the agency that helps wellbeing brands market well, on April 2, 2020, Felicity did what we do best: brought together the right people, asked them the right questions, to glean the latest insights that inform our actions.
Our “sceen-side chat” on “Marketing well during COVID-19” brought together wellbeing marketers, media and influencers, to learn from each other as we navigate this uncharted territory, together.
With strategist Rob Manne as our stellar moderator, we were joined by wellbeing marketers, media and influencers, including:
- Todd Kelly – GM, Canada, KIND Snacks
Journalists/Producers:
- Dave Trafford
- Mike Bendixen
- Sean Mallen
Influencers/media personalities:
- Taylor Kaye
- Erin Trafford
Here are 6 key takeaways for wellbeing brands to help you market well during COVID-19 (and always, for that matter):
- Consider what’s needed. Then BE what’s needed: Don’t overthink what your brand is going to do. Genuine ideas come about organically, and from true audience needs.
- Be the painkiller not the vitamin: At a time like this, it’s more critical than ever to address people’s pain points first. Humour is certainly a salvation, and in fact can help address some of those pain points as well, if delivered appropriately.
- It’s hard to do virtual engagement well. At Felicity, we know this well! But now that the adoption of virtual working has been accelerated across sectors, each organization will have to figure out what works with them, their teams, and their audiences beyond their company’s “walls.”
- Pick a lane, pick a niche, and go deep on it. Rather than generally supporting “front-line workers,” be specific. Hone in on your target audience. Which people and stories, specifically, are critical to your audience? Create unique programs and messaging to focus on them. Use this time to develop or deepen your brand’s connection to a specific community, and you’ll have a whole new core of people who are dedicated to your brand.
- Quality journalism needs support: News outlets are seeing a rise in audience numbers. But, as some brands “have nothing to sell,” or the ads they created before COVID-19 don’t strike the right tone now, investment in advertising on these outlets is going down at the same time. What can brands do to support burgeoning news outlets, keep top-of-mind with their audiences, or perhaps even reinvest funds that had been earmarked for advertising that’s no longer going to run? We’ll be putting our heads together here at Felicity over the coming weeks. We welcome you to join the conversation!
- There is nothing inherently wrong with doing something good and making money off of it. COVID-19 is impacting us all, and it’s okay for brands to profit off this “crisis” as long as the intent wasn’t, “How do we make money from COVID?” Mike Benedixen, Program Director at Bell Media for radio, including Newstalk 1010, told us that if brands want to do something newsworthy it can’t just be to make the headlines (well-washing). But if it makes both business sense and societal sense, then you’ve got a story. For example, the 3D printing business that retooled to make “the Canadian shield” face shields. Or the craft brewery that started making sanitizer instead of suds. These are unique stories that make sense for the news, make money for the company and genuinely do good for society.
If you weren’t able to join live, but want to learn more, you can watch the entire screen-side chat here. The password is “staywell”.