We are all acutely aware of just how tough businesses have found it to just survive this year and of course there have been many which have not. Equally however there are some industries which have actually benefitted from people spending so much time at home and one such sector is that of digital marketing. This industry has been forced to change its ways however, in order to react to new conditions. Marketing expert Tiffany Ash has been speaking about this on her social media channels and it is fascinating to look at just how much the industry has had to pivot and refocus. 

Tone of Ads

The pandemic has provided a very tricky challenge for those who are creating ads, this is because they cannot ignore the situation that is happening, but using it for their own purposes when people are dying is of course an incentive thing to do which will cause mass damage to a brand. The trick therefore has been to create sensitive ads which mention the situation but don’t look to capitalize on it. 

Instant Buy Ads

Generally speaking companies will look to do two separate ad campaigns that run alongside each other. The first of these ads will look to promote the brand and aim to give broader visibility to the brand for the coming years. Another side of the ad campaign will be for individual products and an inspiration for the customer to go and buy something now. In the wake of the pandemic however, businesses don’t have the ad dollars to throw at brand image and we have seen a quick shift  to those ads which are a call to action. This is a result of businesses looking to make money right now, because they may not have a brand to trade with in the future if they do not. 

Digital Marketing Clients

Very soon into the lockdown we saw digital marketing companies flurrying to get as many retail clients as they could possibly get their hands on. Travel and tourism died a death very quickly and whilst those ad dollars were drying up, ad agencies had to try and get online retailers and even brick and mortar retailers with online sales potential on their books. This of course was made even more difficult because of the fact that the art of the pitch was something else that has changed drastically. 

Prior to the pandemic ad agencies would get super creative with their ad pitches and bring in an enormous variety of ideas. Since lockdown however the onus has very much been back on the digital marketing companies to once again get creative with their ad pitches, even though they have been restricted to only being able to do this via virtual means. 

One thing which the digital marketing industry has always been good at is reacting to trends, now more than ever it will have to continue to do so.