Over the past five years, the ��������� and Kantar have measured marketers’ confidence in the strength of the U.S. economy and their organizations’ spending efforts. Unsurprisingly, in mid-2020 the Marketers’ Confidence Index reached its lowest point yet: 82. Since then, however, the outlook of the economy and marketers’ perceptions have improved drastically, resulting in an index of 111 measured early this year. This is a significant rise from last year and indicates marketers are cautiously optimistic, with media, innovation and creative expected to reap most of the benefits.

Things appear to be looking up, but how does this break down into the different areas that make up the Marketers’ Confidence Index? The survey was constructed of questions on:

Consumer Spending

Although perceptions of the past six months are understandably quite negative, the high-level outlook for the next six months is back to pre-pandemic levels. 

Investment Climate

Short-term marketing budget cuts were unavoidable for many organizations during the pandemic and investments were scaled down. However, half of marketers surveyed didn’t feel it was time to cut back investment. Since the middle of last year, that optimism has grown, although it is not yet back at pre-pandemic levels.

Marketing Budgets

During the pandemic, marketing budgets were cut by a majority of organizations and major events or initiatives were postponed or canceled. The outlook for the next six months shows a lot of optimism. Marketers’ outlook on what will happen to their budget in the next six months is similar to pre-pandemic levels.

The anticipated big winners for the increased marketing spend can be found on the media, innovation and creative side. For spending on media and creative, this might simply mean a return to pre-pandemic investment levels, but for innovation this might mean an actual increase.   

Early on during the pandemic a majority of marketers had postponed or cancelled major initiatives with new campaigns and sponsorships or collaborations being a frequent victim. Based on the current outlook, it appears that interest in jumping back into sponsorships is still modest at best. 

Impact on the Role of Marketing

The pandemic undoubtedly had a significant impact on consumer behavior and raised many questions on how to best engage with customers moving forward. Although it might have raised interest in customer insights at the board level, marketers don’t think it has done much yet to raise the expected influence of marketing in the organization. 

Summary

Overall, marketers are cautiously optimistic about the near future and increasingly expect to see higher marketing budgets again. The increases, should they arrive, are most likely to be focused on media, innovation and creative. For media and creative this might mean just going back to pre-pandemic spending levels but innovation might’ve become more of a focal point than before.

Illustration by enjoys25 via Adobe Stock.

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The handoff from the last century to the next fell into place in 2020. This pivot to the future has been building since the mid-1990s, but it took the twists and turns of the coronavirus pandemic to give it the final push and lock it into place.

What the pandemic has made clear is that disruptions are the new normal. Since the turn of the century, a number of critical events have rocked society and the marketplace. Mostly, these have been difficult moments, including 9/11, the financial crisis and the pandemic. But the transformative introduction of the iPhone is probably the most disruptive thing to happen in this century.

The last quarter of the 20th century was far less volatile than the first two decades of our current one. Certainly, there were many destabilizing events and surprises, but on the whole, the frequency and magnitude of such events were temperate in comparison to the earlier part of that century, so much so that economists now refer to the period from the mid-1980s to 2007 as .

The 21st century has seen a return of game-changing disruptions. The experience of the pandemic has made it clear that the events of this century are the prelude to a coming era of disruptions, or a period during which discontinuities will be a feature of the marketplace, not the exception.

The biggest disruptive force on the radar is climate change, both from dealing with its accelerating effects and from remediation efforts to staunch its advance. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in which it concluded that climate risks represent “discontinuities” for economic growth, crop yields and labor productivity, all of which will deteriorate in non-linear ways once key environmental thresholds are exceeded. Even green energy breakthroughs constitute discontinuities of this sort. So whether things turn out for the better or for the worse, climate is an inevitable disruption. As the CFTC noted, “Traditional risk-modeling techniques … will become increasingly unhelpful guides to the future.”

Other adverse disruptions include widespread job automation, declining fertility rates worldwide, a rapidly aging global population, continuing political unrest and perhaps more pandemics. On the flip side, radical advances are expected in biomedical research, particularly after the groundbreaking improvements in data- and information-sharing that enabled scientists to develop multiple coronavirus vaccines in record time. Artificial intelligence will upend many if not all areas of knowledge work. Space exploration has been revitalized by private sector investment. The economic and technological impacts are anticipated to be no less than those of the original race to the moon.

Even before the end of this year, brands and businesses will face marketplace discontinuity. The first half of 2021 will be much the same as 2020. Many people thought the new year meant a clean slate, but everyone sees now that 2020 is in effect an 18-month year. Nothing is changing until the coronavirus is under control. Unfortunately, more transmissible variants of the virus and bungled starts to vaccine implementation mean that the pandemic will persist longer than hoped. But at some point, the rate of vaccination will finally outpace the rate of contagion, at which point an entirely new marketplace will appear almost all at once, creating a sharp discontinuity.

The first part of 2021 will be completely unlike the second part, to the point that brands and businesses must have two plans in place for 2021. This sort of standby flexibility will be essential for a future of disruptions. This means doing business with the expectation that abrupt change rather than relative stability will be the new normal.

Not everything will be different in the post-pandemic marketplace, nor will there be a wholesale return to the pre-pandemic marketplace. Rather, significant change will be found where business models are disrupted. The pandemic has meant more business model disruption than the financial crisis, during which trouble came from overextended balance sheets, not from lockdowns and limits that created irremediable impediments for certain ways of doing business.

Five pandemic-related business model disruptions will offer opportunities for forward-looking companies:

1. Fewer, bigger brands

Culling of competition will increase concentration within categories. Big companies with solid balance sheets and affordable access to capital investment will pick off the growing number of ailing mid-cap and small-cap companies handicapped by limited cash reserves and by a growing number of retail outlets unwilling to stock smaller brands. The push to assortment simplification will favor the biggest brands, resonating with consumers who are looking for stability and comfort in the form of familiarity, convenience and routine. 

The opportunity for brands requires refocusing on brand scale rather than breadth of portfolio, particularly by investing behind brands with appeals that cut across consumer groups. Businesses will need to concentrate resources behind a smaller number of bigger brands. 

The associated imperative is to overhaul high fixed-cost business models. Cash will continue to be king, putting capital-light companies in a much better position to manage assets in innovative ways. 

2. Loyalty

The continued flux within the marketplace has put loyalty into play. Everything about lifestyles has been upended, increasing the need for new solutions. Retail moves to simplify shelf assortments have untethered consumers from smaller brands and line extensions. The surge in e-commerce occasioned by pandemic lockdowns has weakened loyalty as consumers discover new brands online. Brands that have grown their customer base during the pandemic now face the happy yet unexpected challenge of retaining the loyalty of these new buyers.

Brands should look to make retention of existing customers the top priority, while also aggressively targeting consumers lost by competitors. This prioritization of loyalty reverses the trend of recent years in which penetration was the top priority for building growth. 

3. Home

At-home solutions and services will grow and permanently displace out-of-home offerings. The acceleration of digital and virtual is recentering life on distance, delivery and decentralization. Work-from-home will leapfrog as companies see that productivity is unaffected or improved, thus emboldening them to lock in cost savings from less commercial real estate. Virtual solutions will improve as technology companies innovate and partner in new ways. People will look to retain much of their newfound time and control. Innovative offerings will make work-at-home, distance learning and home entertainment better and easier. 

Remapping home-based needs, occasions and media is a critical venture for brands—many have already tackled the issue of new rituals. More importantly, many if not most of the needs gaps at home will be new and thus available as open areas of growth for first-movers.

4. Hygiene

Antimicrobial protection will be a cardinal operating requirement in every category. Health has become hygiene. Masks, distancing and handwashing are here to stay. Every category has been impacted by protocols put in place to protect against infection. Letdowns that alarm consumers about exposure will hurt brands. Consumers have learned that every category, not just traditional healthcare, can help or hurt health—so, every category can now plausibly treat health as a benefit. Central to that will be signaling hygiene.

The opportunity for brands is to incorporate hygiene into the basic brand value proposition. This means innovating around hygiene solutions as well as pushing past old category boundaries to ensure health and well-being.

5. Sustainability

Businesses will have to build back in sustainable ways. Climate issues have unstoppable momentum. The confluence of worsening natural events; a shift at the top of U.S. politics; and growing protests, particularly among younger people, ensures that sustainability will take precedence. Consumers want more corporate involvement in the public sphere, starting with sustainability. The competition for talent will keep companies focused on purpose priorities like sustainability. Investors are also demanding better pricing of risks while looking for sustainable innovations in which to invest. 

Brands must seek competitive advantage from sustainable practices, particularly in areas such as logistics, production, materials and energy. Winning companies will do more than sympathetic communications campaigns. Instead, they will formulate a long-term transformation plan to put the entire business on sustainable footing.

The stability within which brands and businesses were able to operate for many decades has accustomed business leaders to an extrapolation mindset. That way of thinking will no longer suffice. Both the robustness of business models, or the ability to absorb shocks, and the resiliency of business models, or the ability to recover from shocks, have been exposed by the pandemic as weak and unpredictable. With more disruptions ahead, companies will need to shift from extrapolation-based systems that presume high-levels of continuity to scenario-based systems that are designed for stability in the face of uncertainty. In this pivot to the future, brands become leaders by creating opportunities for success out of threats from disruption.

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The ��������� and Kantar surveyed marketers in mid-2020 to understand how they and their organizations view the role of e-commerce. While the pandemic has accelerated the importance of e-commerce for some companies, its strategic role is still unclear in others, with structural enablers acting as barriers to sustained growth.

Many headlines over the past several months have touted the “new normal” and the accelerated growth of e-commerce as a priority revenue source. However, the actual story is a bit more nuanced:

The pandemic undoubtedly accelerated a shift to a larger share of e-commerce sales, but many organizations have yet to start this journey. Additionally, while the impact of the coronavirus on e-commerce revenue has been significant for some, overall it has been modest for most organizations. The data suggests that there are significant barriers holding back success and pushing e-commerce to be a real revenue driver. Aside from the obvious issue that some organizations might struggle to free up the necessary budget to drive e-commerce growth, the results from this study identified several internal factors that will hinder success:

Incorrect Operating Model in Place

If the surveyed organizations’ leadership has made e-commerce a priority; created clear, measurable goals; and developed a channel strategy, then structure should naturally follow strategy. This is important as it enables organizational alignment to deliver sustainable performance. However, only 37% of all respondents agree that their organization has the correct operating model (people/structure/processes/tools) to be competitive within e-commerce. This may be a clear increase from 2019 (see exhibit 5-1), but it nevertheless means there are huge gains to be had by better setting up the proper model for e-commerce.

Lack of Clarity on Responsibility

Sustainable performance can only be gained if there is clear accountability for delivering on the strategy. Without this, there is risk that operationalizing the strategy fails quickly and stymies fruitful collaboration between departments, such as sales and marketing. Organizations have done a relatively decent job of assigning clear responsibilities regarding e-commerce. But despite an increase since 2019, only 47% percent of all respondents agree that it is completely clear who in their organization is responsible for all the different e-commerce efforts (see exhibit 5-2).

Insufficient Integration with Media Planning

In order to leverage e-commerce as both a brand-building and sales touchpoint, e-commerce activities and media planning should be well-aligned. This ensures that all efforts work together to increase revenue and grow the brand. Unfortunately, this is far from a given in many organizations; only half of all respondents indicate that their brand’s e-commerce content is part of their general media planning process (see exhibit 5-3).

Not Leveraging E-Commerce to Generate
Consumer or Shopper Insights

While the focus for most organizations is to drive sales, e-commerce is still being underleveraged as a tool for generating consumer and shopper insights and for brand-building activities. Only 16% of respondents rated their organization as “very good” or “world class” at generating insights out of the data collected by their e-commerce websites or platforms, or even from reviews of their products on retailer sites. Leveraging this data (in conjunction with other sources of insight) could help inform better messaging, superior user experience, product prioritization, and drive new pathways for innovation as well as other use cases.

What Next?

From an organizational design perspective, two key questions must be answered. The first: Where should e-commerce sit within the organization? This should be in sync with the role of e-commerce within the organization’s omnichannel strategy. Secondly, once the structure is set, how do we efficiently organize our processes, people and tools, and critically, ensure functions such as marketing and sales take a far more integrated approach?

Organizational change is no small initiative and we by no means intend to underestimate the effort that it entails. However, this disruption highlights the need for structure to follow strategy in order to effectively act against the organization’s priorities and find new growth opportunities. Those that are able to do this, consequently building in learning loops to create a virtuous cycle of organizational learning, will emerge as the winners, building resilient brands in the face of ongoing and future disruptions.

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Sick of talking about COVID-19 and its impacts? Maybe. But we can’t ignore this pivotal global reality and its ongoing significance on the way we do business. Depending on the specific industry sector or product, the pandemic’s effects have had widely felt consequences. Travel websites like Expedia have experienced , while online connectivity apps like Zoom have shot from 10 million daily meeting participants to 300 million in just a few short months ().

Many researchers have been scrambling to track and analyze these types of shifting consumer needs and behaviors as the pandemic unfolds. We know that when we finally emerge, behaviors will change again. Zoom is an excellent example for further examination. Will it replace face-to-face meetings altogether, as it has done during the height of the crisis? Probably not. But the crisis has indeed made Zoom meetings and calls much more acceptable—even for major presentations.

This speaks to a hybrid of behaviors in our future. If are any indication, people will return to some pandemic-forbidden pastimes with unbridled enthusiasm. However, I think we can agree that the long-term impacts—both physical and psychological—are not going away and will continue to influence customers and users.

How can brands like Zoom, which are enjoying a high level of attention, continue to ride the wave? Conversely, how can brands that have been hit hard by the crisis, such as the travel and hospitality industry, best find ways to get back on solid ground? The foundation to answering these questions lies in holistic, nimble consumer insights. Brands who hold the spotlight right now—and brands that need a bit more stage time—can use the same techniques to help them understand how to best pivot and meet future audience needs.

Have a Deep Understanding of Audience Sentiment and Behavior

This goes well beyond launching a survey and categorizing the results. You must marry multiple data sources together to create the big picture when it comes to the individuals who make up your key audiences. This can include everything from sales data to qualitative focus group feedback and even neuroscience tracking. The trick is to harmonize these varied data sources so that they can tell you what’s really important to your consumers.

Things Are Changing Fast—You Need Insights Even Faster

If you’ve felt that the last few months have been a rollercoaster, you’re not alone. Your audience feels this way too, and as their environment changes, so do their behaviors and feelings. Having the right type of system, process or technology to easily update your insights with new data, “crunch the numbers” and get instant answers is essential. You need to stay a step ahead and start being proactive, not reactive, when it comes to serving your audience.

Adopt New Metrics and Make Changes to Your Tracker

We know that one of the main barriers of making significant changes to any tracker is the trend break that ultimately ensues. If anything, COVID-19 has forced those trend breaks on us already. I’d argue that now is the time to make changes and have a measure that drives your business and works for your participants. Align your questionnaire with your business outcomes, focus on key drivers that impact these outcomes, cut all the “nice to have” questions, embrace alternative data collection options, and go from recall to in-the-moment measurement. Seize this unique opportunity to future-proof your trackers!

The pandemic has forced us to do things differently. In doing so, we’ve found ease and convenience on many fronts, such as meeting by Zoom and working remotely. For example, our team at Infotools went from a nearly 100% work-from-the-office model (pre-pandemic) to a 100% work-from-home model (height of pandemic). Following New Zealand lifting restrictions due to extremely low COVID-19 cases (at the time of this writing), we have found a balance where most people work a couple of days in the office (safely) and the rest from home. This model probably would never have been tested and approved without the impetus of the crisis.

As it becomes safe, there will be a middle ground like this for most of our activities. While behaviors and sentiment probably won’t go all the way back to pre-COVID levels, our reality will be changed for good. Brands and companies need the right way to approach and use consumer insights to understand how they can continue—or renew once again—their place in the spotlight.

Photo by rangizzz via Adobe Stock.

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The quest for greater diversity on college campuses has long been a need, but only recently has it been backed with so much intentionality. Many institutions have pulled diversity, equity and inclusion to the top of their enrollment goals. However, for many institutions, simply increasing student diversity without addressing equity gaps may be a short-term or even harmful pursuit.

Without proper structures to support the success of diverse students, increasing diversity is simply funneling more students into an environment that may not enable them to thrive. It benefits enrollment data — but not the students. For an expanded and detailed view on this, check out the .

This approach can negatively impact retention, student success, and outcomes, along with many other factors of the student experience. Students love to share their experience via social media like @blackivystories, college search sites like and other public forums like the subreddit. that your current and future students read. What do you hope they’re saying about your student experience?

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@brownu . . . . . . #brown #brownu #brownuniversity #blackatbrown #blackstudentsmatter #blackstudentsspeak #blackivystories #blackivyleague #ivyleague

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Institutions that want long-term success and to be taken seriously for their DE&I work should dismantle established processes and practices — the ones that were most likely centered on the needs of a traditional undergraduate student with above-average means — to rebuild an infrastructure centered on the needs of a more diverse student body. Not sure what that looks like? Consider the testimonies on @dearPWI or check out for some inspiration.

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Tall order, I know. But no one is expecting it to happen overnight. It’s a commitment to continuous improvement. And it requires well-planned communication. When done well, communication can fuel the journey — to do its part in contributing to positive change.

Here are seven practices to reach and engage a more diverse prospective student pool.

1. Define What Diversity Means to Your Institution

Greater diversity for the University of Alaska requires a different definition than for UCLA or Howard University or Smith College. Ensure that your staff knows exactly what diversity means in relation to your institution’s goals.

2. Recruit Students Like 5-Star Athletes

There is more competition than ever before for historically marginalized students. The best and brightest of these students have multiple options. They’re being offered generous financial aid packages and a considerable amount of personalized attention. If you can’t compete with financial aid, win by developing 1-to-1 relationships with them. Introduce them to their peers and facilitate conversation; have their future teachers and mentors email them directly; connect them with current students who carry similar backgrounds; invite them to alumni events and make it possible for them to attend. Go the extra mile because you’re asking them to commit to you not for a degree, but for a lifelong relationship.

3. See Them Fully and Name Them

Many students carry life experiences that have been pushed to the margins. The more you can center their experiences and make decisions that directly recognize and benefit these students, the more they’ll be able to visualize your school as a place for them. This can be as simple as including pronouns in email signatures, profiles and feature stories, or broadening the diversity of students shown in photography.

4. Understand That ‘Underrepresented’ Does Not Mean ‘Under-Resourced’

These terms refer to completely different sets of life experiences. There is overlap, but one is not inherently linked to the other. To illustrate this as clearly as possible: there are many well-resourced Black, Latino and Hispanic students. And there are plenty of under-resourced white students. Fight the urge to conflate these terms, and start thinking about them as separate populations, both containing racially and ethnically diverse individuals.

5. Adopt an Asset-Based Narrative

Asset-based narratives recognize and name the strengths of an individual beyond their academic metrics. Identifying and acknowledging an individual’s unique set of skills and personal power helps students receive communications in a new way because we’re not centered on the traditional markers of success such as GPA, AP coursework, class rank, or number of extracurricular activities. This shift in thinking can be a tricky one to master, especially considering the pervasive amount of , as pointed out by Class Trouble. Jackie Gerstein, Ed.D. offers some really helpful .

6. Don’t Censor or Filter Reality

Students today are asking for you to be straightforward with them. So stand confidently exactly where you are as an institution, acknowledge the opportunities to improve, and be forthcoming with the steps you’re taking to move forward. Students respect institutions that are honest about their situation, and your future students deserve the chance to opt-in (or out) of being part of the change.

7. Adjust Your Marketing Channels

Many deserving students and families are still . Families that do have access may be bound to mobile
devices only – PEW Research Center reports . This presents an opportunity to shift your entire enrollment ecosystem — inquiry, application, financial aid, form submission, registrar, first-year experience — from a digital-first to a mobile-first approach. Imagine trying to complete the FAFSA on a smartphone. Go through your own enrollment process entirely on a mobile device and see what opportunities you can find to enhance the experience.

Communication can be the catalyst that unites your current and future
community around a shared vision for DE&I, and it can fuel that vision by creating a desire to change behaviors. But your strongest DE&I message to prospective students is best delivered through demonstrated action, resources, and a full-on commitment to improving, not communication tactics targeted to diverse 17-year-olds.

Photo by Yingchou Han on .

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By Emily Fay, VP of special events, and Mandy Arola, secretary and strategy

We were ready for an exciting March 2020 with several chapter events scheduled, including our Thought Leader Luncheon with MarketingProfs Chief Content Officer Ann Handley. But that month became memorable for other reasons: In the wee hours of March 3, a tornado struck Nashville. And just as we were beginning to recover from the devastation in our community, we were hit with a global pandemic. 

As we entered lockdown and installed Zoom and Google Hangouts, we knew that ��������� Nashville had a unique opportunity to serve our local marketing community and work through the new challenges we were facing together. 

In April 2020, we launched the Wednesday’s Tactical Focus (WTF!) program, a series of free virtual lunchtime roundtable sessions hosted by our marketing maven board members. We held this eight-week series on Zoom and limited registration to 20 people for each session to ensure everyone could participate in the conversation. The 45-minute events were discussions, not presentations. Participants shared knowledge and learned from one another, plus it was a great way to keep our marketing community connected and engaged during a time when most of us only left the house to get groceries. 

Throughout the series, we covered how and what to communicate to clients and employees, how to maintain productivity without micromanaging in a virtual office, how to pivot marketing strategies to optimize digital options and how to address business development and client retention. 

Nearly all eight sessions sold out and many included a waitlist. Attendees were particularly pleased with the program’s convenience, the opportunity to network and the chance to learn how other industries and organizations were adjusting to the pandemic. 

As we start the new ��������� year, we’re exploring ideas and topics to bring Wednesday’s Tactical Focus back once a month so we can continue to connect Nashville marketers virtually and spark conversation. 

By Esther Elkouss, career development and networking programs chair

On March 25, ��������� New York was set to launch an event series to help marketers hunt for their next job opportunity. Due to the lightning-fast spread of the coronavirus, we quickly pivoted toward virtual events. 

Our half-day Marketing Career Bootcamp turned into a three-day virtual event on May 27, June 3 and June 10. Top recruiters and career experts led each session and more than 500 people learned how to , and . Each week, ��������� New York ran two simultaneous sessions and attendees selected one based on their experience level. Those who attended at least two sessions received a complimentary consultation with a career coach. 

In three months, almost 46 million Americans lost their jobs due to the coronavirus-induced shutdown. Given these unprecedented circumstances, ��������� New York decided to launch a second career development program called to help job-seekers learn new skills and build relationships. 

This five-week program, held July 7 to Aug. 11, provided 30 campers with the support and tools needed to leverage their professional strengths, gain confidence during their job search and become top candidates. In addition, they got support from the other campers through a buddy program and virtual happy hours filled with icebreakers and team-building activities. 

By popular request, the ��������� New York Summer Camp Class of 2020 will participate in “Let’s Grow Together,” an ongoing training series. This group of campers will continue to meet twice a month to share their expertise with the group, develop professional skills and build a strong network. 

By Nadege Mohr, VP of career development

Searching for a job is hard work even in the best of times, which is why getting career development resources into the hands of our members is more important than ever. We want members to know they are not alone—a community of marketing professionals is here to help. 

A month into the pandemic, ��������� Puget Sound Career Development partnered with Mindy Blakeslee, director for marketing and product practice at staffing agency , and career coach Rebecca Adler to provide mindset and recruiting tips for job-seekers. Our free April webinar, “Navigating Your Job Search During Uncertainty,” was well-attended and well-received by members and non-members alike. “Most helpful were the tips on supporting my well-being and managing expectations,” one attendee said. 

��������� Puget Sound’s provides professional learning and career advancement opportunities for all members. Our mission is to excite and empower all marketing professionals on their journey to expand what and who they know so they can ultimately create their best career and life. We host quarterly workshops, events and discussions to help members along their marketing career journey—whether a recent grad looking for their next opportunity, or a professional pivoting from a current position. 

For any chapter seeking to innovate with new programming, we would recommend developing a robust strategic plan that includes a clear vision, priorities and goals to offer professional development, job searching, career coaching, mentoring, and leadership and development. This also includes surveying and interviewing members to better understand what is preventing them from achieving their career goals. Your chapter can then prioritize key areas of focus to build a program that helps members overcome barriers to get them to the next stage of their professional journey. 

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Workers have seen their morning commutes reduced from a long, crowded train ride to a quick jaunt from the bedroom to the home office. Concertgoers aren’t elbowing each other out of the way for a prime view of the stage, they’re streaming live shows from the safety of their couches. But just because fans aren’t flocking to basketball courts this season doesn’t mean advertisers can’t still join them for a game.

Many of Americans’ activities have shifted to their homes during the pandemic, which means advertisers should come knocking. The so-called homebody economy—the shopping, studying, working and entertainment consumption that people do from home—existed before COVID-19 drove everyone indoors. But state regulations that have kept many events, schools and workplaces canceled or remote have only hastened the trend.

, more than a third of Americans plan to only leave home for essential activities in the near future, and more than 70% say they intend to permanently adopt much of their pandemic-friendly behavior such as online shopping, home fitness and streaming video.

If advertisers want to reach consumers, they need to make a house call. There’s an opportunity to interact with people throughout the home, as they stream video in the living room, scroll social media in the bedroom, browse the web in their home office and search for recipes in the kitchen.

The most effective ads during this phase of the pandemic rely on the principles that made a great ad before COVID-19. Humor and brand experiences are back in favor and offer a respite from the “We’re here for you” ads of March and April. Fresh, entertaining and engaging ad experiences can be a welcome break in consumers’ well-worn and homebound routines.

Living Room >> Entertainment Advertising

The stats on streaming video usage show that pandemic-friendly media consumption is now considered par for daily life. According to software company Brightcove’s “,” streaming video rose 23% in the first quarter of 2020, then accelerated into 40% growth in the second quarter. 

In the early days of the pandemic, streaming video ads focused largely on general awareness, but Philip Smolin, chief strategy and revenue officer at the advertising platform Amobee, says brands can now be more direct with sales pitches on streaming. 

“For example, six months ago, food delivery services were pretty focused on educating consumers as to why you should use food delivery,” Smolin says. “Now, they’re focused not on getting new customers into the segment, but on share shifting—why you should use us and switch away from a competitor.” 

COVID-19 restrictions vary by state and region, so it may prove difficult to determine how individuals and crowds in ads are depicted as it relates to a location. Masks or no mask? Attending a live concert or a virtual music show? Allen Adamson, a branding industry expert and author of “BrandSimple: How the Best Brands Keep it Simple and Succeed” and “The Edge: 50 Tips from Brands That Lead,” says brands should depict behavior they’d like their employees to exhibit. For example, when filming in an Amazon warehouse or its retail stores, ask the actors to wear masks to match Amazon’s policy. 

Overall, it’s better to focus on nationwide purchasing trends during the pandemic, rather than worrying about differences in COVID-19 regulations. Smolin raises the example of pet ownership: Historically, there were consumers who owned pets and those who did not. But the pandemic spurred many to adopt, which means that pet food companies need to tweak their messaging to better target all the new first-time owners, in addition to veteran animal lovers. 

The more pressing regional concern is whether orders can be fulfilled in different parts of the country. “Your advertising should be aware of the status of your supply chain and of your competitors’ supply chains,” Smolin says. “If you don’t have product on the shelves, stop advertising in that area to drive people into the store to buy the products that you don’t have. … But the flip side is, let’s say that a major brand is out of stock on the shelves, but a minor brand has stock. All of a sudden, there’s a reason for that minor brand to advertise more aggressively in that region.” 

Maximize any and all opportunities on streaming by returning to what compelled some consumers to watch—rather than skip—ads before COVID-19. Francesca Valsesia, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Washington, says humor is making a comeback. 

“There is a lot of research that shows when we are too close to an event, we cannot make fun of it,” she says. “Now, we’re getting to the point where people accept some humor around [relatable quarantine] topics.” 

Let the creative department run wild. Adamson recommends straying from obvious punchlines, such as how every day in quarantine feels like “Groundhog Day.” Consumers are ready to be distracted from daily doldrums and consider what the world might look like after the pandemic subsides. In fact, feel free to promote pandemic-unfriendly activities such as vacations and live shows as an eventual activity to look forward to and plan. 

While streaming remains the hot format, Smolin encourages brands to continue advertising on traditional television. The format has seen a decline in ad revenue over the course of the pandemic, which may signal an opportunity for advertisers. For example, one of the biggest players, ViacomCBS, saw a . Smolin says this deficit can provide brands with the opportunity to make demands: better placement for the price, malleable contracts and the ability to quickly adjust media buys if consumers once again change their viewing habits during the pandemic. He also recommends paying attention to live sports, which are making a comeback. 

Smolin recommends approaching streaming and live TV the same way. Ads on both are long-form and professionally produced. Along those lines, consider streaming and broadcast strategy as one and the same. “Doing so enables you to apply the same audience strategy to both channels and use them for complementary reach, while also eliminating media overlap and waste,” he says. “With [connected TV] inventory now representing more than 10% of all TV, this has become a must-have strategy.” 

Bedroom >> Social Media Advertising

The best of us have fallen prey to the endless scroll—mindlessly thumbing through Instagram or Twitter feeds. The trend is pronounced when consumers wake up and before they go to bed. The text message marketing agency SlickText found that —69% can’t wait more than five minutes in the morning to check. 

Usage has also permeated the rest of the day. “People are bored: They are home more, they’re not going into the office,” says Akvile DeFazio, president and consultant at the social media ad agency AKvertise. “They might be sidetracked during work and browse social channels. It’s where people get news the fastest.” 

Stand out in the endless scroll by taking advantage of video whenever possible. DeFazio points to the fact that Facebook and Instagram allocate 70% of their inventory to video ads, and their algorithms favor video over text. Videos can be easily and quickly processed by consumers and, quite simply, moving images are more effective in capturing consumer attention, even when scrolled by in a blur. 

Video reigns, but DeFazio discourages marketers from advertising on TikTok right now. Between a potential U.S. ban on downloads and uncertainty surrounding its ownership, the future of the short video-based platform is in flux. Instead, take advantage of the video features on Instagram and Snapchat— particularly Instagram’s Reels, its answer to TikTok. DeFazio also expects IGTV, Instagram’s home for longer-form video content, to begin offering advertising. 

As with streaming video, social media ads needn’t adopt a serious tone to capture consumer attention. Play around with interactive tech such as augmented reality, craft visually compelling charts, host user-generated content and ratchet up the creativity. Valsesia suggests adopting this mindset: “How can we give you five minutes of fun?” 

“This is not just about the pandemic,” Valsesia says. “This is generally a trend that we have been seeing—I don’t think it’s going away.” 

Ads might feel looser and more playful, but don’t become too cavalier about ignoring the pandemic. DeFazio recommends eliminating phrasing that might remind consumers of COVID-19 no-nos. “We made sure not to use copy that spoke to anything being touched, like ‘hand-delivered’ or ‘handcrafted,’” she says. “We noticed that things like that were having a bit of a negative impact on our performance.” 

Most social media platforms offer brands the flexibility to fine-tune their ad placements with the use of social media block lists. This is where brands identify companies and organizations they wouldn’t want to be next to when running ads, such as political groups or a competitor whose language has been insensitive. 

Above all, stay current—the news can change on a dime these days. The endless scroll updates users in real time, and the last thing a brand wants is to appear tone deaf. 

Office >> Desktop Ads

The corporate advertising world has been hit particularly hard by COVID-19. Because many workers no longer travel to the office, conferences or sales calls, fewer opportunities exist to advertise at airports, inside taxis and at national trade shows. Phones were the preferred method of communication for work travel, but now most employees are strapped to their desktop computers. 

Valsesia recommends using email and banner ads for the sole purpose of driving consumers to a brand’s website, where more compelling content awaits. Ads can feel static, but those promoting games, a video series, interactive tours and audience polls located on the brand’s site are more engaging. Because colleagues are primarily communicating with each other over chat programs, there’s an opportunity to make your ad shareable and potentially reach a broader audience. Minimize the number of clicks as well—a single tap should point directly to the content and reduce the chance a consumer would bounce. 

“People want to be engaged, they are feeling lonely,” Valsesia says. “Brands have the opportunity here to substitute the humans that people have been missing to some extent [by] having an engaged relationship.” 

Targeting is of the utmost importance, and Smolin recommends brands tie their CRM data to their ad tech platform. “By using an integrated audience strategy, you can better manage the consumer journey, using the right message at the right journey stage for each consumer, and significantly reducing the paid media budget you’re wasting due to overexposure of your campaigns to individual consumers,” he says. 

Be careful not to go overboard, particularly with banner ads. Valsesia warns that consumers are still creeped out when they search for a product on Amazon, then notice banner ads for that product popping into every website they visit. This ad targeting strategy will soon be irrelevant anyway, as forthcoming changes to Google’s cookie privacy policy in 2021 will render it null and void. Under the new guidelines, Google Chrome will no longer store third-party cookies, which consumers find invasive, and will instead implement yet-to-be-finalized technology to collect user data without sharing personal data across multiple websites. Every piece of information will remain anonymous. 

Kitchen >> Advertising Alongside How-Tos

One of the most pronounced trends in the pandemic is the adoption of do-it-yourself projects around the house. For example, sales at Lowe’s are up 35.1% since the pandemic began, and Home Depot sales saw a 25% increase in the second quarter of the year. 

Consumers are often turning to YouTube and Pinterest for help in completing their projects. Pinterest grew 55% year over year between 2017-2019, and . found that searches for the phrase “at home” went up 700% since the start of the pandemic, including a 515% increase in “home workout” and a 458% increase in videos about baking sourdough bread. Even searches for the phrase “raising chickens” increased 160%. 

Ads around DIY content, particularly on YouTube and Pinterest, should be more actionable than those found on streaming video or other social media platforms. “Consumers are in a very different mindset when they are searching for information, versus leisurely consuming content, whether it’s TV, radio or social media,” Valsesia says. “They are ready to be engaged, but also focused on a goal-directed activity.” 

Ads on these two platforms appear alongside the content itself. YouTube ads run before, after or during a video in progress. Pinterest allows brands to purchase promoted pins that appear in search results among user-generated pins. These can appear as videos, static images or a carousel of photos—Pinterest also offers advertisers the functionality to let customers purchase products directly from the pin. Placement of all ads is customizable by keywords. 

Help consumers start on their DIY project right away by tailoring the ad and its placement to the type of project consumers are searching for. Warren Jolly, CEO of the digital strategy agency adQuadrant, raises the example of a treehouse. If a consumer is looking up tips on building a treehouse, Jolly says an effective ad serves as a mirror: Depict a family using a brand’s tools to construct something cool. 

“The goal here is to make sure your ad does not feel like an ad or commercial, and instead, you are inserting your brand in a natural way that coincides with the mindset of the consumer,” Jolly says. 

Both Pinterest and YouTube are search engines in addition to content platforms, so it’s of paramount importance that ads contain proper keywords where appropriate. Pinterest has built-in keyword modifiers, for instance. Once a search is completed, the platform will list other words that can be added to the query to better narrow down results—such as the color of the clothing a user is searching for. Make note and incorporate some of these related keywords into the ad, a strategy that can be applied to YouTube as well.

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Goal

Animals’ fight or flight instincts can lead to some surprising responses. For many Americans at the start of the pandemic, their fear led to a maddening rush to stock up on toilet paper. 

Cottonelle and other toilet paper companies watched their products fly off shelves. Whereas normally a brand would be thrilled to see such high demand for its goods, this trend was concerning. Consumers were hoarding the product, meaning many didn’t have access to their preferred brand or any toilet paper at all. 

Cottonelle had three problems to solve: Reassure consumers there was enough toilet paper for everyone, encourage hoarders to share their extra stock with neighbors and step up and do something extra for those affected by COVID-19. Working with FCB Chicago, its agency of record, Cottonelle developed its #ShareASquare campaign. 

“At its core, the #ShareASquare program was inspired by our consumers,” says Ada Zavala, senior brand manager for Cottonelle. “We understood the additional stress on people to locate Cottonelle products in stores and online. While we were working tirelessly to address the increased demand, we noticed people reaching out to share our products with those in need in their own communities and wanted to celebrate those acts of kindness.”

Great satisfaction comes from sharing with others.
Please don’t hoard the toilet paper.
{Sound On}

— Joy Bella (@joybellabella)

Action

The common refrain from brands at the beginning of the pandemic was to reassure their audience that they were “here” for consumers. But as anyone who’s been trapped in a public restroom with an empty roll knows, words don’t mean much when you really just need some two-ply. For Cottonelle to say it would be there for consumers, that meant reassuring shoppers it could refill shelves. But the company also had to encourage people to help one another in the interim. 

In its own effort to do more, Cottonelle started by donating $1 million and 1 million rolls of toilet paper to the United Way Worldwide COVID-19 Community Response and Recovery Fund. To integrate this work with highlighting customers’ good deeds, Cottonelle donated an additional $1, up to $100,000, from March 25 through June 1 anytime a social media user posted their own toilet paper outreach efforts tagged with #ShareASquare. 

FCB wanted the campaign to include a striking visual component that would catch social media users’ attention. Lisa Bright, executive vice president and executive creative director at FCB, says the team working on the campaign was inspired by square photos and videos typically used on Instagram, and they noticed how a simple white square could also represent a square of toilet paper. 

that reassured consumers that Cottonelle was working hard to restock shelves, that it donated funds to the United Way, and it implored Americans to do their part and share excess supplies with those who needed it. 

The integrated campaign included television, paid media, earned media, influencers and social media. Late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel dedicated part of his monologue one evening to the effort and announced his own donation to United Way. To sustain the momentum, Zavala says Cottonelle’s social team actively searched for and elevated examples of toilet paper sharing throughout the campaign. The United Way, which has a long relationship with Cottonelle parent company Kimberly-Clark, worked closely with Cottonelle to distribute marketing materials so recipients could share news of their donation across social and earned media channels. 

Results

In total, Cottonelle donated $1.3 million and 1 million toilet paper rolls to United Way’s recovery fund over the course of the campaign, marking its largest single donation in the brand’s history. More than 6,000 people engaged with the #ShareASquare hashtag on social media during the campaign. 

“We enjoyed seeing all the instances of toilet paper sharing, of course, but seeing the ways people found to safely share, like porch drop-offs, not only showcased people’s kindness, but their creativity,” Zavala says. “We also circulated the challenge internally at Kimberly-Clark and encouraged employees to participate, which became a way to build our own community while we were all safe at home.” 

The social media posts generated by consumers were rather clever. A search of the hashtag on Twitter includes a photo of a neighbor dressed as the Easter bunny dropping off a package of Cottonelle, a video of dogs passing rolls of toilet paper to one another and a photo of a birthday cake in the shape of a toilet paper roll. There were also a number of references to the episode of “Seinfeld” when Elaine Benes’ next-door bathroom stallmate told her she “didn’t have a square to spare.” 

“Because it was so social-first and there was a very clear call to action to it, [the campaign] definitely saw a lot of engagement,” Bright says. She also attributes some of the campaign’s success to Americans simply wanting an actionable way to help others. “[The campaign helped] to instill this behavior—and at a time when I think everyone felt a little helpless. It was nice to see people step up and do it in a way that then gave them meaning.” 

It also helped boost consumer perception of the Cottonelle brand. 

“We took a negative and turned it into a positive,” Bright says. “Especially in a time where there wasn’t a lot of positive going on, Cottonelle could have been seen in a really negative light for not being around on shelves. This helped to put back a positive lens on Cottonelle through consumers’ eyes in a powerful and meaningful way.” 

Photos courtesy of Cottonelle.

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Robert Half, parent company of The Creative Group, released , which provides a look at hiring trends and starting salaries for almost 90 positions in the creative and marketing industry. 

The report authors acknowledge the challenging economy and slowed rate of hiring for creative and marketing teams. “Still,” they write, “organizations must pursue projects that will see the business through a downturn, and managers cannot afford to turn a blind eye to top candidates who are now in the job market.” The salaries and data included on these pages come from the 2021 Salary Guide.

Salary Percentiles

25th — Demand: Low

Candidate has little or no experience in the role and is still developing relevant skills. 

50th — Demand: Moderate

Candidate has average experience and the majority of necessary skills. 

75th — Demand: High

Candidate has above-average experience and most or all of the necessary skills. They may also have specialized certifications. 

95th — Demand: Very High

Candidate has especially strong skills, expertise and experience—often more than what is necessary. They have specialized certifications. 

Top 3 Hiring Changes U.S. Companies Made Because of COVID-19

54% conducted remote interviews and onboarding.

42% shortened the hiring process.

42% advertised fully remote jobs.

Emerging Jobs

• Growth and performance marketing specialist
• Inclusion and diversity communications specialist
• Online reputation manager
• Virtual events director

Common Benefit Offerings

60% of workers who transitioned to a remote setup because of COVID-19 said their work-life balance has improved without a commute.

60% of workers are more motivated to work at a company that values its staff during unpredictable times.

88% of managers are concerned about retaining valued employees during the pandemic.

48% of employed workers who plan to look for a new job said higher compensation would convince them to stay.

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College is typically one of the least socially distanced times in a person’s life. Students pile into dormitories and dining halls, rally at football games and clump together on the quad. When the pandemic first hit the U.S., it put a damper on in-person campus life, with many schools quickly moving classes online and sending students home.

The new school year has seen scattershot strategies. Some schools have opted to remain fully online. Others have partially reopened to a portion of their students to keep classroom and dorm numbers low. Still others have fully reopened, but with distancing regulations in place. 

Even schools with the best-laid plans have encountered hiccups: Some have had to cancel or delay reopening plans, or quickly close campus after outbreaks. As a result, higher ed marketers again face uncertainty in how to best communicate with prospects on what student life is like on campus—one of the greatest selling points of heading off to college. Student clubs are meeting virtually, dorms are empty or at minimal capacity and many sports programs are on hiatus.

“There’s no crystal ball—we don’t even know what next week will look like, let alone next semester or even a year from now into the fall,” says Ali Nicole Santander, assistant director of marketing and communications, housing and residential life at the University of Arizona. “I don’t like to use the word ‘safe’ or dangle those carrots saying, ‘Everything’s fine here!’ because that’s just not the reality right now.” 

But even if there’s uncertainty, Santander and others say students will understand. Yes, campus barely resembles what it looked like a year ago. Yes, the future remains hazy. But as long as communication with prospective and current students remains open and transparent, the focus will be on how schools are enabling as robust a student life environment as possible—not on what’s lacking.

Tell It Like It Is

Andrew McDaniel, associate director of student affairs, marketing and communications at the University of California, Davis, suggests marketers anchor their communications in state and county regulations. Students appreciate this level of transparency because it provides an understanding of how and why universities are putting together in-person and remote learning plans. 

Ultimately, McDaniel says current students are the greatest resource in relaying this messaging—incoming freshmen inherently trust students to be honest about their experience. He recommends asking students to produce high-quality, one- to two-minute videos on their phones or via video chat software. 

UC Davis developed a guide on filming best practices— how to best frame a shot, tips on conducting interviews with other students and an outline of the story beats in an effective two-minute video—and created virtual backgrounds that highlight areas around campus. UC Davis also provided some professional flourishes, such as the school’s logo. 

“Many of the tools are pretty simple, but we want to make sure we’re able to empower [students] to feel confident doing it on their own,” McDaniel says. 

Even though things may be different this year, that doesn’t mean all student life marketing collateral needs updating. McDaniel says materials from previous years can remain available as long as they are equally unambiguous. For example, UC Davis wanted to screen its general welcome video from years past but was worried it would set unrealistic expectations. They updated the content with a message to viewers that the video was filmed before the pandemic. 

Another key component of an open relationship with prospects is the ability to offer real-time updates. Schools can build a centralized hub on their website for students to learn about modified reopening plans or receive warnings about any outbreaks on campus. For maximum transparency, Betsy Holloway, VP for marketing and communication at Samford University in Alabama, recommends refreshing this dashboard on a daily basis with new case numbers. 

Build and Share Resources

Many typical recruitment tools for student clubs have been rendered null and void. Colleges are opting not to run activity fairs, students living remotely can’t see posters announcing events and shows from performing arts groups have gone dark. 

Jenn Vaughn, senior brand manager at UC Davis, says the best thing a school can do is rely on its current students to gin up excitement and be honest about remote student life. “Sometimes, it’s up to us to stay out of their way in order [for them to] form these natural connections,” she says. 

A centralized, online database of student clubs points incoming freshmen in the right direction. This can include the name of the group, contact information and the extent to which they are operating in person versus remotely (if at all). For best results, let students update this info themselves to ensure it’s current. Encourage new students to dig into what campus life has to offer and to contact group organizers to learn more. 

Vaughn says allowing students to lead the way can breed new recruitment strategies. The UC Davis marching band put together a concert over multiple Zooms to provide incoming freshmen with as close to a live experience as they could, and campus a cappella groups joined together for a sing-off over Instagram stories. 

Look on the Bright Side

Rather than focusing on what’s missing, emphasize the benefits of distanced student life. Vaughn says remote engagement allows schools to offer services to students who may not spend as much time on campus, such as commuter students or those with full-time jobs. In fact, UC Davis’ tutoring and career services haven’t experienced a participation drop-off. Moving traditionally offline services online has also provided more students with access to the school’s mental health resources. 

There are no capacity limits online, either. Concerts and events can take place over video without worrying about spacing out attendees for appropriate social distancing. Holloway says that when Samford had to choose between holding its annual battle of the bands in a 3,500-person venue that could only safely fit 150 attendees, or hold the concert online, they opted to have the bands perform on stage and stream the event—removing the cap on capacity. 

As for dorm life, those friendships are still being forged—even if students are in the dorms but quarantined from one another. Santander suggests leaning on resident advisers, who have likely been trained in leadership and communication tactics. Ask them to set up social media accounts specific to each floor where they can post updates and host virtual events, such as Instagram Live Q&A sessions about student life—as long as they make no promises on in-person activities. 

“Set those expectations, be transparent,” Santander says. “[You can say,] ‘We don’t have all the answers, but we’re going to provide opportunities for you … to thrive—a little differently than it has been done in the past, but [you’ll] have those engagements virtually [and] feel that support available from your dorm staff.’”

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