My Corona Curriculum

Get your Marketing basics right

I am a practitioner who also loves teaching. But, it's been a while since I taught Marketing (my teaching assignments at Uni these past few years have been mostly around Strategy, Leadership, Corporate Governance, Entrepreneurship, Sustainability .....). To all those young marketers and many businesses (who have begun to spray their prospects and customers with numerous messages of late), I thought I will share five random lessons I gleaned from COVID-19.

1. The talk about 'social distancing' is not really about social. Men (and women) are social animals and will crave for mutual interaction. Any attempt at keeping us apart will only be resisted. 'It' is about distancing from the virus (in the 'likely' event that the other person may be an inadvertent carrier). Think about it this way and the message will sink in better. Repositioning in marketing is all about reframing an idea.

It can make the difference between success and failure. Is there is an opportunity to reposition your products and services post COVID?

2. Self-isolation is less about confinement, more about avoiding danger. The 'fight or flight' response is a natural human instinct. Fight the virus or flee from it. Ask people to self-isolate, they see that as infringing on their 'freedom'. Tell them how they can stay away from death, you are offering them a lifeline - a 'chance' to live.

When it comes to your own marketing communications, don't fixate on the stimulus you send out. Instead, focus on the response you seek. You will find your customers will more readily warm up to your messaging.

3. Telling people to wash their hands rigorously for longer is as effective as pouring water on a duck's back. No one wants to believe their hands are dirty, unsafe or even infected (if only our eyes were embedded with tiny electron microscopes). The forty seconds advice is NOT to 'clean your visibly dirt-free hands' but to 'clear out the invisible deadly virus'.

In the business world too, what you see is not always what kills you easily. 'Invisible' disruptors are more destructive than 'visible' competitors. Work relentlessly to keep your customers and your reputation.

4. Price is a function of value, not cost. Think toilet paper, sanitisers, even pasta. For too long, we have been conditioned to sell products at ever declining prices (made possible by diminishing marginal costs). Corona has reminded us about the fundamental principle of price elasticity of demand albeit under very unfortunate circumstances.

Make sure your products and services offer more value than the value your consumers and customers attach to the money they are willing to part with. Marketing is all about value exchange. Once you articulate your value proposition clearly and compellingly, you will turn from being a price taker to a price maker.

5. Multi-patient ventilators (based on scaled down specs) designed by auto manufacturers are becoming a critical innovation in India . So also easy to assemble, lightweight, water resistant cardboard beds with a 200 kilogram load bearing capacity. Both are born out of social necessity more than economic opportunity. Innovation can come spontaneously to any business if they think of it in terms of improvisation in the face of adversity.

Creativity does not necessarily flourish in an environment of abundance and comfort. It more often grows out of a need for survival and preservation. Do not wait for profits to prime the development of your next product. Look for pain points that need to be addressed.

May the virus meet its end soon but may the lessons from it last for ever.