Advertising in the Time of COVID-19

There’s hardly any aspect of the business world that hasn’t been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, including marketing and advertising.

Here at CultureSpan, we began the tele-working transition around mid-March when the City of El Paso instituted its own stay-at-home order for the area. While we settled into the “new normal”, we did so with our clients top-of-mind. What kind of impact would the pandemic have on their business? How were they preparing for the adjustment? How could we help them and their customers communicate all the new changes?

As we began to have a better understanding of how situations were being affected, we started to see how our clients’ needs would be shifting as well. This allowed us to think about strategies and recommendations that would help some of them pivot from their pre-COVID-19 messaging to a direction that would help address current issues.

Our efforts started with El Paso Water, the public water utility that serves the City of El Paso. When the pandemic began, as many of us know, a lot of people were hoarding items such as toilet paper, disinfecting wipes, sanitary wipes, and hand sanitizer. However, people were also hoarding an item that was somewhat puzzling – bottled water.

It was an odd choice considering El Paso Water’s intricate process ensures its customers have safe, clean, and reliable drinking water available straight from their tap. While this message had been delivered to the community in the past, we knew it was important to hammer it home during this time and worked diligently on a media strategy for El Paso Water’s review and approval.

Our media team developed an approach based on the viewing and online habits of El Paso Water’s target demographic – parents with school age children. The plan consisted of specific media we knew would be highly consumed during this time. A few weeks into launching the plan, we prepared a progress report for review with El Paso Water. Because of the high rate of interaction with El Paso Water’s messaging assets, the campaign was considered a success and they requested to continue the media plan.

While many aspects of life were put on hold, the need to access finances was still a major necessity for many people. CultureSpan realized that recent changes might affect how TFCU, one of El Paso’s largest credit unions, would provide service for their customers. So, we conducted thorough industry research to develop recommendations that included a multi-faceted media strategy, accompanying assets and messaging points related to services affected. The ultimate goal was to ensure customers’ concerns were addressed and that they were aware of the proper procedures which should be followed to access their TFCU accounts. This was accomplished with video assets created with a combination of new footage and re-edited existing shots from their extensive library along with a new voiceover to make the message more relevant.

Last, but definitely not least, is a client with one of the most essential needs for day-to-day life –
El Paso Electric. With a stay-at-home directive firmly put in place, electricity is one of the last necessities anyone would want to lose. Our team’s first step was to dig into more industry research and learn how other regions had been dealing with electric utility services.

This prompted the development of an online resource full of information pertaining to El Paso Electric’s services and how they would be affected by the pandemic ordinances. It was important for customers to know their service wouldn’t be cut off due to non-payment, that there were financial options available to help anyone who might end up unemployed and that they should be cautious of service-related scams. The messaging points were just a few of the many assets developed for El Paso Electric to provide customers with COVID-19 related information via its various social media platforms. The creative direction chosen for these assets was based on a warm and comforting approach that helped demonstrate El Paso Electric's support for the community, as demonstrated in its tagline "Powering Thru Together".

As we near the end of another week or prepare to start a new one, we know each day can bring about something different with the pandemic. Therefore, we continue to monitor the situation to determine how those changes may affect us, our clients and how we all operate. This includes next steps like focusing on helping our clients safely re-open their business with messaging relevant to a returning workforce.

If you’re trying to figure out how your marketing and advertising approaches should change during this new time, send me an email at Gabriel.Acuna@CultureSpanMarketing.com so we can discuss your needs.