https://embed-ssl.wistia.com/deliveries/9922dfa13a51299298c6f29c2e8a560b.mp4
The more relevant question is – should you be part of that conversation or not? What we’ve seen during COVID is that in the beginning, every brand was saying the same thing: we understand these are difficult times, but here’s how are cookies, cars, or hand lotion is the best solution under these current difficult circumstances. It just doesn’t make sense – consumers are very smart and educated, and they’ll pull through that very quickly. In fact, I believe it can become counterproductive because you can get the ridicule of consumers, and you become a hashtag or something like that.
What we’ve learned from the research is that if you can find that natural, logical place that makes sense at that moment and the consumer can relate to who you are in that moment – then it makes perfect sense to do that.
It can enrich and enhance communication because it can actually make you more relevant and make you stand out from the competition. But if the opposite is true, when it sort of feels dragged into it, not relevant and kind of virtue signaling, consumers are not going to buy into that. They know when they’re being taken for granted or taken in a direction that doesn’t make sense. The best-case scenario is that they’ll make fun of you for 15 seconds on Twitter, or, in the worst-case scenario, you will have to pull ads and do all sorts of other things. Be very careful and find the natural interaction with it.