Every crisis is an opportunity in disguise; You just need to identify and communicate it…..
During the time of economic uncertainty, businesses and consumers react, and those reactions have different effects. We have seen that during the pandemic crisis when the global market was crashing, many companies altered their marketing strategies and reduced their advertising budgets. While it is a short-sighted strategy during an economic downturn. This response is a bit more understandable in today’s economic situation.
Consumers have reacted by shifting their focus more toward information than commercialism. They are engrossed in the latest news and updates, which may affect their well-being. The volume of news content being published, as well as the consumption of news media, has spiked. ‘This is where the eyeballs are — this is where the attention is’.
The role of public relations is to positively place a brand into news stories. That is why PR is the one function within the marketing organization that is positioned to step up, take a leadership position and have the greatest impact on company reputation during this period.
Earned media, specifically, is already the most trusted form of marketing. Somewhat, it is also the most cost-effective. There is simply no better instrument during a widespread crisis than communications.
People need more right now. They need to be educated, entertained, and enlightened. People need great stories. We are operating in a world of narrative economics, and this is at the heart of the communications function: identifying the compelling idea, crafting the narrative, and finding the right partner to tell the story with.
But the world of media has changed dramatically in the last decade. Managing your company’s reputation through a global crisis is different and harder due to the significant presence of more authors, bloggers, and influencers contributing to many more media outlets than existed before.
Monitoring the media for trending topics, terms and themes have become as much of a scientific exercise as a marketing exercise. Shifts in the financial markets, healthcare system, and energy and regulatory industries can have dramatic impacts on news cycles.
Today’s communications team is expected to not only keep track of these shifts but to dynamically mold them in a way that their company can take appropriate action. The modern communicator is not just a great storyteller. They need to understand data: how to organize it, how to read it, how to interpret it. And since things are changing day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, information needs to be available quickly and on an ongoing basis.
With the right perspective and the ability to adjust your communications strategy based on these real-time trends, you can both protect your brand during pivotal moments and find ways to reassure your constituents of your company’s key values. Understanding the news is the first step toward shaping it.
Here is a practical example of using real-time data to react and pivot to media trends.
An example of using real-time media insights to adapt is to closely monitor the ways your competition is being mentioned in the news and optimizing your communication strategy accordingly. If, for example, there is an early signal that a competitor is gaining traction around a specific conversation in the news and your brand has something equally or more compelling to add to that conversation, you can act quickly to insert your story into the media that is most relevant, thus hijacking the story and drowning out the competition. Conversely, if you quickly detect that a competitive tactic is backfiring based on negative sentiment, then you can incorporate this learning into your efforts by avoiding a similar tactic.
In the current COVID-19 scenario, the role played by communication cannot be emphasised enough. In March 2020, PhonePe, one of India’s leading payment systems and digital wallet companies, found itself amidst the storm when its exclusive UPI bank partner was placed under abeyance. This led to a halt in any form of transactions on the platform. The company’s leadership and communications skills that followed in the next 24 hours helped convert a crisis into a means of developing an even stronger and deeper relationship with customers by communicating transparently, frequently, and proactively at regular intervals through the crisis. The first step to successfully managing a crisis is the speed to response – the sooner you take charge of the situation, the higher your chances are to minimise its effects. PhonePe didn’t waste any time from when the crisis hit to initiate communications with their customers, providing them with clarity as well as relief, thereby preventing the crisis from snowballing into a larger problem.
NSE, which suffered a major technical glitch that led to unwarranted losses for many traders, on 25 February 2021, said the system had to be shut down due to the failure of its online risk management system. The exchange had to shut down its whole system, resulting in confusion and chaos on Dalal Street. Market regulator Sebi was forced to extend the trading timings for the day to take care of traders’ open positions.
The largest exchange in India said it has multiple telecom links with two service providers to ensure redundancy and there were reports of instability of all their links from both the service providers. NSE did not name the service providers.
By the time NSE informed of the resolution of the issue and extended trade timing, most brokers had squared off open leveraged positions of their clients, which is a usual practice, meaning traders were left with no positions when the trading resumed and the market rallied sharply. This resulted in losses for many traders.
In this current state of crisis-induced uncertainty, we are likely to see a lot of opportunities if we just look for them. That is why this information is so important right now. And while further pull-backs in general marketing and advertising expenditures are to be expected, there are very few crises where less communication is better. It is almost always the case that more communication, and more well-informed communication, is the best strategy.
