Remember the frustration you felt when you first heard about the lockdown? It hasn’t reduced. Now, we have just learned how to live with it. It has been quite a struggle to realign ourselves mentally and physically with this new lifestyle of social distancing, but modern problems call for modern solutions, they say.
While the economy has come to a sudden halt with the imposition of lockdowns across the world, the ad-world too faced the same fate. With various companies having pre-planned the launch of their campaigns during the following months, it all had to go through some major modifications to suit the current scenario.
Whenever a group of creative minds collaborates, their products usually fall within the spectrum of the good, the bad and the awkward. The marketing trends that have emerged during this pandemic usually followed the basic principles of – #stayhomestaysafe or #weareinthistogether.
While these trends have successfully boosted people’s morales and helped in spreading the message to the masses, it has slightly started moving towards the monotonous side of the social dial. However, there are brands that have been cutting through the tension through their amusingly novel advertisements both on and off-screen.
Ohio Department Of Health practices S o c i a l D i s t a n c i n g
“A little space makes us all safer together”- an impactful ad that strikes a chord with its viewers through the use of simple mouse traps and ping-pong balls. The Ohio Department of Health collaborated with Real Art, an American advertising agency to reach out to their people.
While many brands across the world had started with their social distancing campaigns using the logo separation method (as used in the subtitle) to highlight its importance, this advertisement came in as a breath of fresh air to the audience, making its simplicity speak for itself.
Be It A Burger Or An Advertisement, Burger King Always has a 1+1 To Offer
Burger King has always believed in the principles of fun and novelty when it comes to marketing their products. This period is no different for them. The very first step they took was to change the “HOME OF THE WHOPPER” to “STAY HOME”, cutting out the latter part of the former phrase in their outdoor advertisements. And this was just the beginning of their strategies.
As people cannot go out and see their billboards outside, the next best thing for them to do was to bring the advertisements to them. They started a contest wherein they transformed all the billboards into Zoom backgrounds and asked participants to take a screenshot showing how they used them during their video calls to win a free Whopper. Quite an appealing strategy indeed!
Amul –The Taste Of India
AMUL has always been known for its innovative one-liners featuring the famous ‘Amul Girl’ created by Eustace Fernandes, the art director of DaCunha Communications in 1966, that they have used for their branding.
Be it the depiction of the current lifestyle that includes washing hands, working from home, and watching Mahabharat to thanking our frontline warriors- the health care workers, Amul has been doing it all along. Salaamul Namaste, the socially distant style of greeting!
Courage Is Beautiful, Says Dove
A bold tag line with a series of rather striking images rolling in the background that portray the distraught condition of all the health workers across the world as they work for extremely long hours, serving patients and helping them recover – indeed a moving gesture for all the warriors out there.
These workers are the most vulnerable at this chaotic time as they have been fighting from right in the heart of the battleground. The kits that they have been using to protect themselves from this highly contagious virus has taken a heavy toll on their appearance alongside their health. Dove paid their tribute to these heroes through a commercial featuring them.
Also Read: Delhi College Student Exposes Scary Twitter Trend #Boyslockerroom Which Discusses Underage Girls Inappropriately
ProBalance – Learn It From The Pros
ProBalance is a dog food brand. The recent advertisement that they have launched across various platforms in collaboration with Think Tank is quite an eye-opener. While all the pet-owners out there have finally gotten a considerable amount of time to spend with their pets, the Director of Think Tank has come up with an out of the box innovation of his.
The advertisement features his daughter and their pet dog, amidst a training session. The tag-line “Take it from the pros of sit and stay” resonates well with the product ProBalance, besides being perfect for the current scenario that we all are in.
Surf Excel – Daag Ache Hai
Lockdown may have restricted our outdoor activities. However, it can’t dampen the festive spirits. There have been many such occasions when Surf Excel’s moving advertisements have hit the headlines.
Here Ramadan is seen in the light of doing charity at this hour of crisis for those who don’t have their loved ones to take care of them at such times and others who have to go out to fulfill their responsibilities towards the society. #NekiNahiRukegi has struck a chord among the viewers, expressing how no calamity can ever dampen the innate virtue of humanity.
Honda Advertising From Home
The very thought of an automobile company advertising from home sets our expectations low – probably another one of those reels that talk about the features of a new car it has launched in length. However, Honda seems to have a surprise for all its viewers.
Collaborating with Memac Ogilvy they have used a miniature car to create one of the first advertisements that were created, shot, and watched at home completely. The very novelty of the idea has surely succeeded in making a statement in the ad-world.
Emily Crisps Asks Who Said Bill Boards Can’t Reach Home?
Emily Crisps, a packaged food brand had scheduled its first-ever outdoor campaign in April 2020. Well, the pandemic seemed to have other plans for them. Now cribbing about destiny wouldn’t help them compensate for the resources that they had already put in behind the whole campaign. But they do say, where there is a will, there is a way!
They modified their advertisements, adding a slight tone of sarcasm mocking their choice of time for an outdoor campaign. The quirky one-liners all across the city have caught everyone’s eyes and it made its way to the headlines of various papers and websites right away, thanks to which you are reading about it here now.
Emirates Remembers Us
At a time when we all seem to have been grounded by an invisible enemy for an uncertain period, hope is all that we can cling on to. The airline services got disrupted and paused for the same reason. But Emirates with their new advertisement, ‘Do You Remember’ takes us to a different time – one in the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRoAQ3dmOUw
A beautiful ad set in the future narrates the story of this lockdown and how we all were strong enough to have passed through it, in unity. Though the message is simple – to be patient as we are all in this together, they assure their customers that they have not forgotten about them and that there will soon come a day when we all will be looking back at this phase of our life, recalling it just as a memory.
Simple and sensible seems to have been the mantra for all these commercials. They have struck a chord with the audience and have succeeded in promoting their brands while assuring them that they will be right there when everyone gets back to their normal lives, once the storm blows over.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: BusinessLine, Brand Equity, Shoot + More
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This post is tagged under: lockdown advertisements, social distancing, brands, communicate, messaging, innovative, creative, shot at home, made at home, ads, unique, heroes, coronavirus, covid-19
