CMOs in the spotlight on consumers and the crisis

At the Cannes Lion Live 2020 event last week, a group ofmarketing leaders spoke about their experience leading the marketing mission for their organisations through this time of coronavirus crisis. 

Leading a health brand in a health crisis

GSK CMO, Tamara Rogers, began by explaining how, at the start of 2020, the consumer healthcare company had clear growth plans, strategy, strategic resource allocation and prioritisation for how the team was going to work on its brand. And then coronavirus hit.

The marketing chief said health has become front and centre in the crisis the world is suffering through. The focus for GSK was on driving availability, awareness and presence of key brands consumers might turn to during a health crisis.

“We took a look at the brand portfolion through the lense of the consumer, shifted the strategy - whether that was media or content - to make sure we were showing up when and where we needed to be,” Rogers explained. “Are we living up to our promise when thinking about the role and the purpose these brands play and in the life of the consumer? We looked through and re-categorised our brands.”

The pivot also required new content, changing messaging and fast movement to shift the focus and the relevance in response to such an enormous, all encompassing event. “We become very focused on what really matters,” Rogers continued.

“This has been an accelerator in terms of the strategic direction we want to take - ecommerce for instance - leaning into strategies we already had and seeing that online shopping has become a need, more than just a convenience need, and this will continue.”

GSK is using live tracking tools as well as search to track and understand changing sentiment and mood and to adjust messaging so it reflects and connects with consumer sentiment through this rolling crisis.

“Learning from the signals, being data-driven, and being sure the content is connected to the search data to be  relevant to consumers,” Rogers said. What's more, she expected health to continue to be something people are being more proactive about and more driven for truthful information.

“Right now, people just want brands to be useful and do not want to be advertised at. So it’s looking at how you shift that relationship and make sure you’re engaging,” she said.

Acting for good and for growth

CMO with Belgian multinational drink and brewing company AB Inbev, Pedro Earp is another who sees marketing increasingly going far beyond advertising. 

“More and more marketing is going to be about finding holistic solutions to consumer problems,” Earp said. “And CMOs will be responsible for delivering business results.”

According to the marketing chief, the effects of a twin crisis - the coronavirus health crisis and the related economic crisis - will see marketers become more accountable for bringing solutions that help the consumer and business solutions that help the company. For AB Inbev, it's already produced dramatic shifts in consumer behaviours and required the beverage company to be agile in offering solutions to changed consumer behaviours.

AB Inbev's overarching plan has several key attributes: Identify issues, anticipate trends, understand changing consumer behaviour and address them faster than the competition.

“The look of the new normal will depend a lot on the distance between the peak of infections and a permanent solution. The shorter it is, the more likely people will go back to some of their old habits. The longer it takes, the different it will be,” Earp said.

People's behaviours have changed dramatically with the crisis and, as beer is a drink that has been bringing people together for thousands of years, the company has needed to adapt quickly and stay in touch with how people are coming together differently with the virus and lockdowns, he explained.

“Beer is not on anyone’s priority list when they’re thinking about hand sanitiser and masks. So we said ‘let’s think about them as people and what they need now’. And at that time, they needed basic items and to feel safe and we looked at what we had that could help," Earp said. "We also have alcohol and we were able to donate it for sanitiser, re-purpose bottles for face shields, that kind of thing.”

Up next: Endeavour, Beiersdorf chief marketing officers share how they see consumer behaviour from the COVID-19 crisis impacting marketing and marketers in the 'new normal'

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Pivoting a high-touch event business

Endeavor CMO, Bozoma Saint John, concurred with the other marketing chiefs that no strategy or forecasting could have prepared anyone for what's happening in 2020. “You make some allowances, but nothing like this,” she said.

With standard business metrics and KPIs almost thrown to the side given the enormity of the COVID-induced health and economic crisis, it’s a fight for survival in many ways, Saint John said. “First and foremost, it’s making sure businesses still exist when the pandemic is behind us.”

In its business, Endeavor is focused on live events, media and talent representation, which has meant the majority of activities have been paused.

“Trying to figure out how other businesses can innovate and come up with new plans has become part of the strategy for this year,” she said. “It is a moving target. What success looks like constantly changes from day-to-day.”

Taking events such as New York Fashion Week from “high-touch” to virtual events is the focus now and Endeavor is quickly trying to adapt in how to keep consumers and clients engaged in what could be the future of fashion week.

Saint John said the challenge, which can be both daunting and invigorating, is about capturing what mood or emotion is happening, relating to where people are at and reflecting what’s going on, at pace, throughout this crisis. 

“Our entire strategy, in this moment, has to be in reacting to what is happening. We’ve always had forecasts but as marketers our investment needs to be turned more to the present,”  she said. Just take the global movement against racial injustice.

“We’re now also facing racial and civil unrest and looking at how we can make all our business more diverse,” Saint John added.

The marketing chief hoped the rate of change would slow down because it’s not possible for things to change as rapidly as they have been, longer term. 

“There are more mistakes made when you’re moving fast. My hope is that we can find a middle ground," she said. "Not going back to the days of waiting to understand what the data tells us and before we move based on our feelings and our gut. But the speed we’ve been moving doesn’t help us understand culture, look at trends and understand them before we make moves.”

“This is forcing us to drive from our human emotion first.”

Saint John said she’s been shocked at how quick and profoundly many have responded to the Black Lives Matter protests that have taken places across the US and saw it galvanising many businesses like never before. In response, the marketer, together with three other business women, has developed the ‘Share the Mic Now’ initiative to help support and amplify the voices and input of women of colour and make it more equitable in this moment when real change and progress seems possible.

“When we hear from women, and we don’t always hear from women, it’s from white women. And we wanted to support the contributions of women of colour, to get into the platforms of white women like social media, and land their messages with audiences where they have probably not been able to disrupt before,” Saint John explained.

“In so doing and in so sharing the mic, we’ll be able to get a more equitable voice in those domains.”

Building brands people love

Beiersdorf CMOs, Asim Naseer, who spent 20 years with P&G and now oversees the iconic skincare brand Nivea, said he loves building great brands which people love. And it's the human need and trust that will help brands do that during this challenging time.

“These types of brands are a mix of several things: The first is strategic innovation, and the best ideas are the ones that comes from the consumer. The consumer is the boss - the strongest ideas and biggest insights come from the consumer. The second one is creativity and storytelling. Third is building trust. Nivea has a lot of trust but there is an opportunity to go further,” Naseer said.

During the COVID crisis, the brand’s humanitarian action has included converting its plants across five continents to start manufacturing disinfectant, donating products to frontline workers and celebrating everyday heroes with the ‘Share the Care’ campaign.

Naseer predicts the crisis will have lasting impacts such as the increasing focus on health, which will change some behaviours going forward. He noted this kind of megatrend will shape innovation along with regulations around being transparent about ingredients and environmental impact.

And after the events of this year, Naseer said nothing should surprise us anymore. “Change is so dynamic that it’s to be expected and planned for as much as we can," he concluded. Despite the challenges, this episode has left one lasting realisation.

"The resilience of the human spirit in meeting all of these challenges which can come at the same time."

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