10 Brands that excelled their Marketing Strategies during COVID-19 Crisis

We live in a dynamic environment and what we have witnessed right now is a complete disaster caused by a novel coronavirus around the entire world. As a marketer you need to be prepared for everything and anything, one need to change their marketing strategy according to the existing situations. Here is a list of Top 10 Brands who are doing exceptionally well with their marketing campaigns and business strategies during the coronavirus pandemic situation.

10. McDonald's

McDonald's have always been one of the quickest global brands to come up with their unique advertising campaigns and this time in order to promote the message of Social Distancing they have separated their golden arches in the logo.

McDonald's was also among the fastest to launch contact less delivery with the campaign #DeliveringHappinessSafely to boost up their online order sales.

9. Walmart

You probably have heard about 'happy hours' but did you know about 'early hours' yes, you guessed it right, Walmart has come up with this unique initiative and will be opening its doors an hour early once a week exclusively for shoppers over the age of 60, this was done because stores these days are extremly crowded and senior citizens are most vulnerable to the coronavirus.

Following this, many local stores across the world have also started similar special hours for senior citizens.

8. Dove

Dove yet again winning the hearts with its simplicity in their new campaign 'Courage is Beautiful' which gives a message of gratitude for health care workers tirelessly working on the front lines to help treat COVID-19 patients.

The brand is also donating $2 million to humanitarian aid organisation Direct Relief to help get personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, and medicine to health care workers.

7. Cure.Fit

Gyms across the country are shutting down as the government takes steps to prevent the spread of coronavirus. As people are opting to working from home and stop going out, the importance of being ‘online’ is also growing. Fitness startup Cult.fit announced that while its centres will remain shut, it is going online with cult.live, an online training app So, now people can join the classes from the comfort of their homes.

The online classes will be available across formats like strength, cardio, HRX, and yoga on all seven days of the week.The startup will also provide real-time feedback with an energy meter that will track your workout, and will also offer classes led by real athletes like Mary Kom, Manidra Bedi, Vijender Singh and many more.

6. PVR Cinemas

PVR, the largest theatre chain in India, is looking at seat distancing in its halls as one of the out of the box ways to ensure audiences feel safe about returning to the movies after the coronavirus forced lockdown is over.

Seat distancing basically means that if two people book a ticket, PVR will leave a one-seat gap between them to ensure that a safe distance is maintained.

5. Pornhub

Pornhub offers free one month access to its Premium content across all the countries which are on lockdown due to COVID-19, displaying an excellent example of its Freebie Marketing Strategies.

Despite being ban, Pornhub sees up to 95% rise in traffic from India after the lockdown was imposed

4. Burger King

With fast food restaurants closed due to COVID-19, Burger King France wants its users to make their own burgers at home. It started off the campaign with the name #QuarantineWhooper which shows a poster of neatly organised, shop-bought ingredients that fans can use to imitate BK’s Whopper at home.

Additionally, the company shared recipes for “quarantine” versions of other popular items, such as its fish sandwich and its steakhouse burger.

3. Tinder

While people are denied to even step outside of their home because of lockdown, Tinder is letting their users travel across the globe over their app by making its passport feature free and let users find their quarantine buddies.

With the passport feature users can search by city or drop a pin anywhere on the map to start swiping there and one can virtually transport themselves out of self-quarantine to anywhere in the world.

2. Reliance Jio

Telecom giant Reliance Jio in collaboration with banks will let users recharge their numbers at ATMs in case they are unable to do so online. The new benefit is being provided as shops and service centres across the country have closed down due to the lockdown. This new facility is targeted at people who do not have access to internet payment methods.

Not just this, in a bid to encourage more people to work from home, Reliance Jio introduced special work from home packs at lower rates that provides extra data to the users. With all these benefits, Reliance has successfully implemented some well target specific marketing campaigns.

1. DD National

As the nation goes under a complete 21 days lockdown, DD National played their master stroke by re telecasting their all time classic shows Ramayana & Mahabharata twice a day on the channel. The channel also brings back their other classic shows such as Shaktimaan, Byomkesh Bakshi, Circus (featuring Shah Rukh Khan), Chanakya and many more.The channel brings back the feeling of nostalgia among its audience.

The re-telecast of Ramayana on DD National has garnered the highest ever rating for a Hindi GEC show since 2015 (source: @BARCIndia), the magnificence of the viewership is comparable to that of IPL final matches 2019