‘Tech-celeration’ steps to build brands post-Covid

Generation Z is believed to be “the more technologically skilled age group. FILE PHOTO | SHUTTERSTOCK    

By PRITAL PATEL More by this Author

The post-pandemic world has compelled individuals and organisations to pause and review doing business.

Covid-19 catalysed and accelerated digital adoption. This enabled many industries and organisations to pivot from brick-and-mortar establishments to entities with a strong online presence, and with products that speak to a tech-celebrated economy. 

These e-changes have resulted in more flexibility, when it comes to the proverbial work-life balance narrative, with many businesses now on a hybrid model.

This has led to a marked increase in Internet data consumption on the home front. In Kenya, technology companies reported a double-digit increase in mobile data consumption, a growth that was accompanied by a shift in traditional data traffic locations – from commercial to residential areas.

This compelled Internet service providers to expedite network re-balancing and optimisation to remedy any Internet traffic congestion.

This, then, could lead to concluding that people are spending more time online. 

Read: Preparing tech for life after Covid-19 pandemic

The pandemic also impacted the priorities of marketing departments. These shifted more towards technical, creative, and strategic focus areas, compelling marketing agencies to review their service solutions.

With a continued shift with respect to the platforms where content is most consumed, marketing professionals have had to carefully reflect on key learnings from the pandemic and rewrite the marketing communications playbook, if they are to tactfully position their brands in a post-Covid economy, thereby maintaining their competitive advantage. 

Creative Edge recently announced its partnership with FCB, (Foote, Cone, and Belding), a global marketing communications company.

With this partnership, we became Creative FCB, enabling us to merge synergies and accelerate our collaborative strengths, to introduce even more cutting-edge solutions as we work towards becoming that future-fit marketing communications partner needed in a post-Covid global economy.

Laura Starita’s opening statement in an article published on management consulting company Gartner’s website in 2020 could not have been more timely: “In a crisis situation subject to rapid change, chief marketing officers (CMOs) need a proactive plan to adjust and adapt how they lead their teams, speak to their customers, and manage their brands.” 

The pandemic has compelled us to reflect on what we have always known. 

Janet Balis, penned an article for the Harvard Business Review in 2021, identifying what she described as ten ways in which the pandemic challenged critical truths about marketing, giving the discipline’s practitioners a new set of rules moving forward.

Her very first point, in my opinion, anchors us back to the basics — that marketing used to begin with knowing your customer, but it is now hinged on knowing your customer segment. 

Do we continue to invest in research that will inform how to effectively reframe our brand positioning approaches, more so now in a highly digitised environment?

Balis posits that brands must communicate in very local and precise terms, targeting specific consumers based on their circumstances and what is most relevant to them and that marketing messages need to be aligned to an individual’s situation and values, as opposed to demographics, such as age and gender.

I came across some research that sought to assess effective marketing campaign strategies for millennials and Generation Z.

This study also looked into the purchase patterns and the bearing social media has on stitching together effective marketing strategies to attract Generation Z and millennials. 

The research suggests that millennials are viewed as “the most modern and mature generation in the world today.” Conversely, Generation Z is perceived as “the more technologically skilled age group.”

With respect to e-commerce, it seems Generation Z mainly uses social media to shop online, while millennials use the same medium to better position their business ventures. 

Therefore, social media tactics would be more effective in a marketing campaign, targeted at Generation Z, as opposed to millennials.

It is such data that informs CMOs of the most strategic approaches to take, cognisant of the changing face of consumer spending and content consumption habits.

Also read: Infrastructure projects key in post Covid-19 recovery

There is also a need for CMOs to review their work ways with their marketing communications agencies, to identify post-pandemic opportunities as they shift their focus from cost efficiency towards overall long-term profitability.