One Question A Day: How Can Brands Help People Feel More Useful During COVID-19?
As people navigate their way through the new normal, brands can use this opportunity to step up and take action. Throughout my interviews regarding brand purpose, authenticity is a common thread among successful brands. Now, it is more important than ever. By being authentic, purposeful and useful, many brands are leveraging their power for good: Think Ford and Tesla, offering up their factories to make ventilators, or Anheuser Busch’s distilleries making hand sanitizer.
I spoke with Bob Liodice, chief executive officer at the Association of National Advertisers for his thoughts on how brands can find ways to be useful and comforting to consumers during this chaotic time.
Read the full transcript below or click here to watch the video.
Jeff Fromm: How can brands help people feel comfortable and be more useful during this unprecedented time?
Bob Liodice: Yes, they are chaotic times and this is an unprecedented year in our history and a great opportunity for brands to find that purpose and their usefulness. At this point in time, we have a great relationship between brands and consumers and this is a terrific time for brands to step up to the plate, to develop their authenticity, and to deepen that loyalty. Not by trying to push product out the door, but by being authentic and in their desire to be able to help their consumers directly.
There are a number of great examples from around the world where brands are doing just that and focusing in on the needs of people. Like LVMH, which is working with its China factory to be able to create masks. Like AB Anheuser Busch, that is leveraging its Brazilian factories and non-alcoholic brands to be able to create hand sanitizer. Like General Motors and Tesla and Ford that have dedicated their factories to be able to produce ventilators for the use of the medical profession. And so many of these brands are finding their authenticity. They’re finding their voice and they’re finding their ability to be directly useful to the people. And right now there’s no greater case than this. There is no greater need than to be able to find ways to help people, particularly those that have the virus, but to all of the other people that are stricken by the fear of getting the virus. We are all held together by that overall usefulness and purpose that these brands are in fact delivering. So we’re grateful to their assets and we’re grateful to their contributions.
speed-to-usefulness framework
JEFF FROMM
If you have been following along, my previous article referenced the speed-to-usefulness framework. We are currently in phase one: “Adjust”. If you are interested in reading more about the three phases, check it out here.
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This article first appeared in www.forbes.com
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