How to make marketing budgets work harder in a crisis

Helen Normoyle, Co-founder of My Menopause Centre & Effie UK Council Member

With economic pressures mounting, marketers are being forced to make their budgets work much harder. In a recession, marketing spend is often first to take a hit, and it takes equal parts ingenuity and rigour to ensure the brand, and indeed the business, continues to succeed.

As CMO, any action you take must be meaningful for consumers and employees trying to navigate through tough times. Fortunately, many brands are demonstrating the importance of staying connected to what consumers and employees are going through right now.

These include Iceland, which is offering interest-free loans to customers, Boots paying for prescriptions for those able and wanting to take HRT, John Lewis, which is funding staff meals, and those brands – such as HSBC, Virgin Media and O2 – that are giving employees extra payments to help with the increasing cost of living.

Keeping up with the times

First and foremost, in a crisis, brands need to engage with people in a way which respects the changing context. This often requires a new approach or a shift in tone.

The NHS did this with its “We are the NHS” campaign during the pandemic, which resulted in the highest ever annual uplift for nursing applications.

Meanwhile, last year’s recruitment drive, the “Live 1000 lives” campaign, moved away from the crisis-fighting image delivered during the Covid crisis to show how rewarding it can be to work in the UK’s healthcare system. This campaign, which won an Effie award this year, ​​delivered an effective tonal shift as part of an inspiring, authentic and multi-channel campaign which felt appropriate to the times.

Making difficult choices

When budgets are constrained, marketers will have to ensure that nothing is wasted and that every available channel, asset and touchpoint is used as effectively as possible.

As CMO of Boots, when the Covid crisis hit, like so many others I and my team had some key issues to tackle in a short time frame and on a tight budget. On top of the health and safety concerns for staff and customers, colleagues also faced abuse from some customers frustrated about the social distancing and queuing restrictions in store.

Partly to tackle this, we wanted to show how Boots was being genuinely helpful to customers – and we had to do this at pace and in the most effective way possible.

To this end, we focused on Boots employees on the frontline as they are (as in most organisations) the most important brand ambassadors and we leveraged every asset and touchpoint, from the website to in-store, to amplify the campaign messaging #prescribekindness.

With our dedicated frontline colleagues, pharmacists and healthcare advisors facing significant challenges and the store and website operations turned on their head, it was clear we needed to adapt our processes and marcomms plans at pace, across the entire operations of the business and thousands of stores.

We also knew that our customers would not feel safe if our colleagues did not. Working hand in hand with our colleagues across the business, we had to deliver what felt like 10 years of change in 10 weeks, transforming services, both physical and digital, while deepening our relationship with the NHS.

Working from the inside out

We doubled down on transformation, reinventing how we did things and embracing agile working. Fortunately, we had the advantage of a strong, purpose-based brand and brand pillars that run through everything Boots does. That clarity of purpose really helped inform all the decisions we had to make at pace.

But most importantly, we had to let both our customers and our colleagues know that we were there for them, joining up internal and external communications so that they were completely in lockstep.

The impact of Covid and the lockdown that followed meant we had to scrap the marcomms plan which had been in development for the previous six to nine months, and deliver a new campaign that reflected the dramatic change in circumstances in little over a week.

Our very close working relationship with the brilliant team at Ogilvy was key to being able to work at pace. Their insights were invaluable.

The power of purpose

Given that we felt Boots and Boots colleagues were truly making a difference to customers, the NHS and the nation at large (Boots was designated an essential retailer and the health and pharmacy parts of the stores remained open), this campaign was rooted in Boots’ purpose.

We used the hashtag #PrescribeKindness to showcase our appreciation for one another – customers were able to show appreciation for the kindness and care of our colleagues and colleagues were able to do the same for each other. We harnessed the power of social media to tell these wonderful and moving stories both externally and internally.

I know I personally felt both humbled and honoured to work with such kind, caring and dedicated colleagues, who consistently went above and beyond for customers and for each other. And we put Boots’ brilliant chief pharmacist, Marc Donovan, front and centre of an information campaign to answer the Covid-related questions people had via a series of regular YouTube videos.

In this way, even – if not especially – in hard times, we must remember that brands can be a powerful force for good. This takes authenticity, purpose and true appreciation for customers and colleagues.

The need for creative storytelling

Marketers on constrained budgets have also got to be creative and think beyond traditional communications. For instance, to get beer tax lowered, the British Beer Alliance didn’t just commission a campaign that focused on the impact of the tax on the price of a pint, it launched a national movement to protect and support local pubs.

This Effie-winning “Long live the local” campaign mobilised the nation – reframing the issue of beer tax and using the Parliamentary process to orchestrate a movement that couldn’t be ignored. To support Britain’s pubs and breweries, it put power back in the hands of the people – saving the industry more than £2.5bn in the process.

While you can never over-communicate or over-reassure, in unpredictable times you also need resilience and flexibility, especially as customer behaviour continues to shift, with audiences consuming media in different ways. Marketers must stay close to what customers are doing, and be willing to change and adapt plans when necessary.

Recent years have also brought home the importance of community. This rings as true in an economic crisis as it does in a pandemic.

Brands can be a force for good through highs and lows. While we can’t predict the future, leadership that shows genuine curiosity and care, love for your customer and respect and gratitude for your colleagues as your most valuable brand ambassador is as important today as it has ever been.

Originally published on January 25, 2023 in Campaign UK.