How CMOs Commit - The Three Properties of COVID-19 for CMOs

There has been much talk from scientists, politicians, and various pundits about the properties of the novel coronavirus. In hosting many virtual CMO roundtables and listening to CMOs over the past three months, I’ve identified three properties of COVID-19 as it pertains to brand leadership.

COVID-19 is the great illuminator

The recent pandemic has shone a light on leadership in every facet of life. The types of leadership decisions CMOs are making in the presence of COVID-19 are characterized by tremendous tension: safety of employees and needed revenues to survive. Supporting the community and keeping the enterprise healthy. Short-term pressures and long-term brand building. The way companies, and their CMOs, respond to this crisis is a defining moment that will be remembered for decades.

COVID-19 has highlighted the real value of brand purpose. We’ve seen that the most purposeful organization have been revealed to possess dramatic agility and dauntless resolve. For these CMOs, brand purpose is a core operating principle, not merely a marketing artifact. This responsive purpose enables them to stay true to the organization’s DNA while exercising boundless creativity as the context shifts.

COVID-19 is also uncovering the need for all brands to behave as citizens in the broader community; to take into account all constituents in a very intentional way that goes beyond CSR to public-private partnerships, and more.

COVID-19 is the great accelerator

COVID-19 is accelerating trends that were already happening. The pandemic is rapidly accelerating the transition to direct-to consumer, digital transformation, brand as publisher, omnichannel, remote working, telemedicine, contactless everything and more besides. Diligent CMOs are watching to see if buyer and employee behaviors exhibited during the pandemic become permanent habits as we reemerge.

COVID-19 is hastening the recognition that branding is no longer about words and pictures; it’s about experiences. Brand is a set of expectations that the entire organization is responsible for delivering, guided by the CMO but not limited to the marketing department.

The virus is also speeding up the focus from CMOs on employee engagement, employee brand behaviors and company culture. The pivotal brand-building role of all employees, especially those in direct contact with customers, is in sharp relief and CMOs are taking notice like never before.

COVID-19  is the great “complexifier”

People—our customers, teams, employees— are feeling dislocated, anxious, forced to make decisions with incomplete information, and a lot of uncertainty. A vital unknown is how long this virus will last and how long it’ll take before we have a vaccine. The resulting stress impairs peoples’ ability to make decisions. Complexity is a cognitive tax on people. The most enlightened CMOs, across both B2B and B2C business models, realize that brands need to reduce the cognitive effort required of customers to interact with them. This effort has manifest in useful content, more intuitive website, curbside pickup, clearer terms and conditions, and more.

Conversely, COVID-19 has lifted the veil on the importance of simplicity. It’s fascinating to see how expansively CMOs interpret simplicity. While some think about simplicity as solely achieving clarity or being reductive, others implicitly consider the many dimensions to simplifying brand experiences: clarity, relevance, transparency, consistency, and utility–making people’s lives easier.

For the CMOs and organizations attuned to how customers and employees are thinking and feeling, it is a critical time to build brand equity and employee loyalty. These brands are not only surviving in a time of crisis; they’re building their brands and in so doing, setting their organization up well for the next phase.

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Our next virtual panel is on June 18th where I will host our special Gen Z Edition of our Future of Branding series with Madhur Aggarwal, Pearson - Suvas Aggarwal (7th Grade), Jamie Moldafsky, Wells Fargo - Katie Snell (Junior, High School), Alicia Tillman, SAP - Riley Tillman (5th Grade), Angela Pih, Papa&Barkley (Former) - Lucy Lassman (10th Grade), Arlene Amitirigala, Diageo - Lauren Amitirigala (10th Grade) and my son Emmet O'Sullivan (7th Grade)

Siegel+Gale will commemorate Pride month with a special edition Future of Branding event. On June 25th I will host a virtual panel featuring a conversation with leading executives from the LGBTQA community, I will hear from Tifenn Dano Kwan - Dropbox, Peter Markey - TSB Bank, Sven Seger - Microsoft, Steven Tristan Young- Poshmark and Gwen Migita - (Recent) Caesars Entertainment Corporation.

What questions should I ask of the panel? What commitments are you making to your brand at this time? I look forward to your responses. Thank you for reading.

This a biweekly series for brand-side senior marketers. To request an invitation to join us a guest, visit events.siegelgale.com