Growth Opportunities for Brands during the Pandemic

Since the announcement of the first Lockdown in March, anxiety, fear, and other mixed emotions added the consumers' behavior of purchase, leading to panic buying of staples and other products such as toilet papers. During the normal course, consumers often went along with their habitual brand and were reluctant to change. This retention of consumers by the brands were followed by a costly marketing plan.

The uncertain environment has come with a large opportunity for small or mid-sized brands to grow. With days passing by, a shift was observed in the consumer’s shopping behavior. While many brands were hanging on the cliff, few improvised, and others adapted to survive leaving a hodge-podge certainty and uncertainty of down-fall and uprise. The glamour here stands with the small and mid-tier brands for having a peculiar opportunity to work (like the SIVA model) and hit the new environment of consumers.

Study of the Patrons

During late March, a study conducted in the US to reckon new patterns in purchasing behavior of consumers gave the following:

Wide Shift in Consumer Behavior:

• Change of location and clock of shopping (online and offline)
• List of products changed to mostly essentials
• Low shopping frequency and increased cart size
•   Panic buying of non-perishables and rare to find products
•  Inclination towards home delivery facility (online and offline)

Consumer Mindset and Attitude Shift:

• The benefit sought more than the brand sought 
• Sentiments and interest inclined towards the brands with pro-social behavior
• Low interest in status-driven purchases or items consumed publicly
•  Aligning their sentiments with or against the company, on the way companies are treating their employees during this time
• The attitude changed to look for product’s features to find alternatives to the out of stock items.

Across the globe, people are confined to their neighborhoods, and the trend of “buy local” has taken a thrust. People have become more conscious of product costs and have shifted to buy more sustainable options. While the pandemic has risen the interest in e-commerce, the adaptation rates have gone high towards other contactless services like delivery or curb side pickup. This uncertain trend has given brands a new subject to discover the difference between regular purchase and loyalty to the brand.

Small and Mid-tier Brands must respond with SIVA

Solution:  

• During this pandemic, no product exists as an ideal product, but a solution does exist to the needs and problems of customers.
• The opportunity for brands lies in offering a solution that is much relevant to the consumer’s concern.
• Ex- Soap brands that offered scented soaps shifted their strategy and started offering a solution to their consumers by educating them on how washing hands from soaps for 20 seconds break the outer protective layers of germs and oils and keeping you safe from the virus.

Information:

• Informing and educating consumers on how and when to practice the best behavior during the pandemic to avoid being bothered.
• Conveying customers, the information on how the brand understands and would support their current needs.
• Ex: Soap brands started educating customers by saying “Doesn’t matter what soap you use but do wash your hands”.

Value:

• Pandemic has left financial uncertainty across the globe and is likely to continue, therefore, the consumers are looking for more value in the product than just an unnecessary brand name.
• Hitting the right spot which adds value to the consumers would level up the competitive landscape.
• Understanding the behavior for innovating and evolving to render new value to be delivered.

Access:

• The market of the pandemic era needs to be ready to give accessibility to their products anytime, anywhere.
• Increase the use of digital sites, direct-to-consumer offerings, and other convenient ways of accessibility (such as kiosk on streets) shall be exercised to allow consumers to purchase at ease willfully.

With the current pandemic scenario, lies there a big opportunity for the small and mid-tier brands. The realization should be to “turn the disaster into opportunity”, where the vocal is more for local.

This blog is written by Kumar Kritanshu, a student of MBA at the Asian Institute of Management, Philippines.