Advertising and COVID-19

These are challenging times for the advertising industry. The past few months have seen advertising expenditures in much of the world decline substantially. The situation is likely to worsen at least somewhat in the near terms, with Statistica predicting that $26 billion in advertising revenue will be lost in the U.S. due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Vorhaus 2020). While no one can be certain how long the pandemic and its impact will be felt there appears to be consensus that recovery is likely to be difficult, and perhaps slower than recovery following the ‘Great Recession’ of 2008.

While there are limits to what the industry itself can control, there is a clear need for advertisers and agencies to adapt to an environment that has dramatically almost overnight. The effect of the pandemic varies significantly by industry (e.g. airline vs. flour manufacturer), medium (e.g. digital vs. magazines), and primary market served (business to business vs. consumer). For example, I recently wrote a spice company who had to shift it marketing focus from chefs and foodservice to home cooks due to many hospitality industry businesses being on lockdown and in the process has to change pricing strategy, offer new flavours and package sizes, alter distribution channels, and change the focus of almost all of its promotion (Taylor 2020a). The need to adapt quickly to a changing environment is essential to many in the ad and marketing business.

While the International Journal does not plan a special issue on the COVID-19 pandemic (our Routledge/Taylor & Francis sister journal, Journal of Advertising will be), submissions on the topic are welcome. As we cannot be certain of the duration of the pandemic, authors are especially encouraged to focus on broad implications of their findings that may apply when things eventually return to normal, whatever that may look like. While my intent here is not to outline a comprehensive set of areas ripe for research, I would like to map out a few that I believe to have special potential for research conducted during the pandemic.

One area very ripe for research relates the effectiveness of corporate social responsibility (CSR) appeals. A recent survey by Berlin Cameron/Perksy study, a strong majority of young consumers believe that marketers can play a positive role during the COVID-19 crisis (Taylor 2020b). As it is common to see advertising appeals focussed on CSR during the pandemic, research on the effectiveness of various appeal types (e.g. consumer safety, employee welfare, honouring first responders, donations to charity) can be research using established theoretical frameworks (see Schaefer, Terlutter and Diehl (2020). Examining various factors including company/message fit, trust in the advertiser, and authenticity are also of interest (Bergkvist and Taylor 2016; Bergkvist and Zhou 2019). The construct of authenticity and its relationship with effectiveness and whether there is variation by generation would appear to be ripe for study during the pandemic.

Changes in media habits and the potential for effective marketer response in terms of promoting a product or service is also of interest. For example, some musicians have turned to offering free concerts online and wineries offer virtual taskings. Digital is believed to be less hard hit than some other media as those quarantined can spend time on the internet, but research on what formats and what type of targeting work most effectively would make for timely research.

The notion of ‘homefluencers,’ coined by Jaysen Gillespie of Criteo is also very much of interest, with the idea being that during lockdowns or increased hours staying at home, social media users may take on additional importance. Consumers, and especially young consumers, may rely on these influencers (De Veirman and Hudders 2020; Lou and Yuan 2019), who often instinctively understand where they fit into a follower’s life during a crisis. What the influencer thinks in terms of how to dress or eat during the pandemic may take on extra importance. The role of homefluencers and the effectiveness of various types of appeals in environments such as Instagram and YouTube is worthy of study.

In general, during the pandemic, there is likely to be greater focus on ads using emotional appeals. Thus, research on the role of emotion in processing ads and the effectiveness of emotional appeals is warranted. It may also be the case that artificial intelligence platforms that can be used to programme array of messages based on consumer characteristics and behaviours can be tested in a digital context (Cardona 2018). Surveys on whether consumer attitudes towards privacy change during a pandemic that may require mass testing and/or vaccinations would also be of interest in an environment where concerns about data protection had been heightened prior to the pandemic, manifested in the General Data Protection Regulation in the EU and the California Consumer Privacy Act (Taylor 2019).

Another area worth of exploring is how electronic word-or-mouth (eWOM) is affected. Chu and Kim (2018) in a review of recent literature noted that eWOM has been increasing and consumers increasingly give, seek, and share brand experiences online. Research focussed on virality (see Phelps et al., 2004), and drivers and level of effect on brand image and sales (e.g. Hayes and King 2014) during the pandemic might provide interesting results. Submissions on the aforementioned topics and other relevant studies on the impact of COVID-19 on advertisers are welcome.

Charles R. Taylor
Villanova University
[email protected]