Don't listen to the post-corona marketing hysteria

If history is anything to go by, the marketing world is about to be inundated with a tsunami of dodgy advice on advertising and public relations in a post-Covid-19 consumer world. Be careful. Be afraid.

Sadly, our ad and PR industries have the habit of latching on to issues then thinking up appropriate buzzwords in an effort to extract money from clients.

Yes, indeed, the consumer mind-set has changed and so will marketing. But, it won’t need new terminology or buzzwords and there certainly isn’t a need for what might appear to be magic fixes.

Throughout history the basics of marketing have not changed. The very same ground rules still apply.

With many traditional media types struggling, more panic will set in and consequently outrageous claims on performance. The strength of traditional advertising started to wane long before the coronavirus came to town and all that has happened is that Covid-19 has speeded up the process.

Consumers, with the exception of lower income groups, stopped watching those now defunct 30-sec TV commercials ages ago. But, you can be sure that the TV networks will continue to flog these dead horses instead of realising that there are many other ways television can be used to communicate with consumers. Methods that have been used successfully for decades now as smart marketers realise that traditional commercial breaks were just not cracking it.

The message now is to rely on the basics of marketing homework and not be side-tracked by hysterical claims of magic elixirs.

And if you want to know where to start this whole process, contact me. It’s what I do.

About Chris Moerdyk

Apart from being a corporate marketing analyst, advisor and media commentator, Chris Moerdyk is a former chairman of Bizcommunity. He was head of strategic planning and public affairs for BMW South Africa and spent 16 years in the creative and client service departments of ad agencies, ending up as resident director of Lindsay Smithers-FCB in KwaZulu-Natal. Email Chris on moerdykc@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter at @chrismoerdyk.
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