A simple reasoning on post-COVID Mktg: business as usual or a land of opportunity missed. An article written by Nicola Bonetti (5 min read)

As an observer of what is going on in the sports mktg field right now, while watching one of the games of the NBA Finals a couple of days ago, I was intrigued by the back to 100% capacity proudly shown during the broadcast in one of the arenas. Was it just a symbol of the ruling willingness to return to normal or a milestone of a missing opportunity?

Last year, when all of us were in the middle of various lockdowns, a colleague and friend, launched the idea of weekly online meetings with a bunch of sports mktg professionals and executives to talk on the crisis consequences and do some live brainstorming to deal with it.

The idea was good and the participation great but what I think was the most interesting point was the mood who had been always present during those conference calls: the exceptionality of a reunion of a community of professionals to find ways to deal with the economic pandemics’ effects and a sense of the time requiring new approaches for the changes on the horizon.

After more than a year, I would say that on our line of work nothing changed that much. Yes, a lot of balance sheets have been disrupted among the private and the public sector, public is still mostly banned form attending events of any kind and generally speaking, travelling is still difficult as it is going to restaurants or to the movies and forgive me if I forgot something on the previous limitations list.

A question arises immediately after reading the previous paragraph: I listed dramatic changes from the past, and I am telling you that nothing has changed, did I go nuts? Well, there is a dichotomy clearly perceivable in the post-COVID scenario and it is related to the general attitude expressed by the people and governments to return to normal when the conditions are telling that is not going to be possible anytime soon. The pandemic marked a change that will leave undeletable scars but professionals as people want to return to a safe way to do things, the way they always did in the pre-Covid era, that is what I meant when writing that nothing changed in the attitude.

But is it possible to do marketing as usual when the field of operations has shifted so much? Clearly, a change is needed, and it is not made by only cosmetics on the way we communicate as it appears to be right now. Even if the peoples’ memory is short as it is its financial memory, take as an example how easy was to forget lessons learned from previous financial crisis, what happened to marketing due to COVID must be addressed substantially and with a new approach. Changes in income distribution and inequalities are on the rise and not all the companies have been kissed by the pandemic as Amazon.

Factors such as the scarcity of some raw materials, the chips crisis, the skyrocketing shipping costs must be carefully taken into consideration, so is the raise of the climate change issue before it reaches a level where procrastination is not an option anymore, all of this under the frameset of the looming US-China tech and commercial battle. Those macro factors are only the envelope where marketeers are going to operate combined with the change in the consumer behaviour, the most unpredictable of all variants and the pivotal point to drive all present and future mktg actions.

Plain and simple, my point is just a question: are we missing an opportunity if we underestimate the post pandemic change in customer mindset and in its actual economic conditions? Nobody knows at this time if this change is underway or if is it offset by the mainstream back to normal mentality combined with the effects of governments aids, but we must consider that something has really changed, and we have to address it carefully. Only the ones who will be able to understand this change before the others will have a winning card in their hand.