To navigate the post Covid-19 phase, S Prasanna Rai, Vice-President, Marketing, Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting says marketers will need to prioritize brand building and ensure brand messaging builds brand trust Lockdown…New Rules…New Normal! Working in an FMCG company, I am always in the thick of understanding consumer behavior. However, in these past few weeks I have had an opportunity to observe consumer behavior very closely within my own house. Interestingly, the current situation with lockdowns, essentials’ supply getting hampered and new supply formats coming into play, my family has adapted to the evolving situation like a duck to water, albeit differently. When we couldn’t find our preferred oil brand, we made do with what was available, a lot of preferences were given up, my elders stepped up on technology helping them to stay connected with family and friends and children stepped into virtual classrooms. While we have been talking about this decade being the VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) environment, the Covid-19 pandemic has truly brought it alive across the world. And even though talks are underway of the lockdown soon coming to an end, we are entering a “New Normal” where consumer behavior is likely to be governed by an “Underlying fear and uncertainty” of the external environment. This emotion would dominate the consumer’s mind while evaluating the product offering, understanding the brand messaging and finalizing purchase behavior. As custodians of these brands, marketers would have to observe, analyze and react in real-time and continue to evolve in line with the dynamic consumer behavior to retain brand trust and value. Though this is the current situation, as marketers we need to revisit, adapt and adopt our strategies as per the evolving situation and consumer needs. Keeping customer at the heart of the strategy, some of the fundamentals that it can be based on: Product Offering –

• Do Good v/s Feel Good: Consumers today want to feel safe and are looking out for reassurance of safety as they make a purchase. In such a scenario, the ‘Do Good’ products with a concrete benefit offering would dominate the market as compared to ‘Feel Good’ in comparison to an imagery led offerings. In such a scenario, imagery led brands will need to build a much stronger tangible benefit platforms to gain relevance and in turn salience amongst consumers.
• Premium Brands: Brands primarily dependent on social validations would be under immense pressure at this time, as consumers’ rational behavior would dominate their purchase behavior making them question their choices. As the world continues its struggles with an unpredictable pandemic, there is increasing uncertainty of future income amongst consumers, leading to a reduction in the willingness to spend generously. Additionally, decreased social gatherings are bringing down the badge value. All these factors will result into premium brands to explore smaller formats that reduce transaction cost, retain relevance and maintain their household penetration levels.
• Health and Hygiene: These two factors are of paramount importance and top-of-mind for the consumers today, extending beyond personal hygiene into expectation of hygiene amongst others and the society at large. These aspects have resulted into steep demand for products in this category in the short term and are also witnessing the entry of new players in the market. For any brand to be able to make its mark their propositions would have to be sharp and distinct that makes the brand relevant for the long run with product formats that adhere to both individuals and institutions.
• Pack Size Preference – In the short-term large pack/ bundled pack purchase would be high owing to uncertainty on availability due to lockdown, but in the long-term smaller packs will dominate owing to income uncertainty.

Building and Reinstating Brand Trust:

• Ensure every piece of communication across advertising, activation and promotions is driven with the singular objective of building brand trust
• The brand messaging should be beyond product offering to a larger purposeful messaging which is socially responsible and reassuring to the consumers, emphasizing on safety and security
• Incredulous brand messaging or product experience, in the present atmosphere of “Fear and Uncertainty” can be death knell for the brand.

Shopper & Media Behavior:

• Television and OTT viewing is witnessing a surge especially the news and movies segments with lesser opportunities of venturing out for entertainment
• Digital and Social media advertising will see a phenomenal growth and it is important for marketers to leverage this medium effectively while ensuring there are evaluation metrics across media options
• Print, Outdoor and Cinema are likely to see a setback in terms of access to audience and will get deprioritized
• General Trade and Kirana will make a comeback, and so the traditional route of POP and retail display will become critical
• E-commerce will lead the growth vis-à-vis modern trade as consumers would possibly fear to venture into crowded spaces. There is a strong need to customize pack offerings to e-commerce platforms and invest in marketing on these platforms.

To sum it up, to effectively navigate the post Covid-19 phase marketers will need to keep the following in mind:

• Prioritize Brand Building and continue to invest behind it
• Brand messaging to be responsible leading to Brand trust
• Marketers to handle the short-term by tweaking the product portfolio to enable supply chain
• In the long term, tweak your Brand Portfolio to balance the Do-Good Vs Feel Good products and Mass Vs Premium product offering.