Brand Communication During The Pandemic | Amy Perez

 2020 has definitely been a challenging year for all of us-- and the marketing and advertising world weren’t the exception. AWLATAM hosted the 4th edition of their conference, online for their first time with a variety of topics that are relevant to the industry’s current situation, such as changes in consumer behaviors, women in the industry, and the use of streaming services to reach new consumers. Although most of the panels were interesting and full of insights, there were three that captivate the essence of the changes in consumer behaviors, data-driven creativity, and digital marketing.

In times of challenges and tragedy, many brands probably asked themselves: how do we reach consumers with the right message? Especially brands like beer, where ads tend to be more about festivity and relaxation-- but who was in that mood in 2020? This question suffered a slight transformation and went from that to how do we connect with our audience? How do we tell them we’re here for them during these difficult times?

 

In this panel titled “Data and Its Impact in the Creative Process,” I learned about the power of data, AI, and social listening. “Dia de Los Muertos” (Day of The Dead) is one of the major traditions celebrated in Latin America, especially in Mexico, where it’s a holiday that involves family gatherings to remember those who passed away. During the pandemic, family gatherings weren’t possible, and speaking of the dead was something nobody wanted to talk about. Mexicans were not only losing their loved ones during the pandemic, but they were also forced to lose their most valuable tradition.
A group of creatives was thinking about a way to let their consumers know “we are here when you need us the most.” They began by doing social listening, by being part of the conversation, and listening to what people were saying and how they were feeling. They realized that many people were having a difficult time not being able to say their last goodbyes to their loved ones. This led to the creation of 8 different ideas that allowed them to explore the tradition respectfully.

As one of the panelists said:

“People that don’t work with data are people that only have an option,” 

so, with 8 different ideas, they were ready to move forward to the data part. Data plays a big part in any campaign-- qualitative and quantitative research were extremely important here as they needed to understand if their idea was the right message that Mexicans needed to hear. They also implemented Synapbox, an AI-powered facial recognition tool, to understand how consumers reacted and interacted with their ideas. This tool provided them with precise metrics that they were able to interpret and get even more insights from. It was such a delicate topic that they were handling, that they needed to make sure they polished every single detail before they aired it. This shows how important it is to work with data but most importantly, to be able to understand data, as one panelist said: 

“We always have ideas, but we should take advantage of data to understand whether the idea is a good one or not.”

With these efforts, they were able to create a beautiful campaign of a series of videos that venerated the dead with poems, as some regions in Mexico do when saying their last goodbye to their loved ones. People usually barely watch an entire video ad but with this one, they obtained 13.9 million full views in one-minute videos out of 46 million which says a lot about the content they created. This reiterates that creativity is definitely born from an insight but insights can only be born from data. This creative group of individuals added that when good content is created, it’s not only good for the moment they release a campaign, but it also serves as an indicator that they are accomplishing their goals, and as a resource for future projects.

In my quest to finding more resourceful ways to understand how brands have been able to adapt to these changes, I joined a panel hosted by Waze called “Navigating the New Reality: Advertising and Marketing During the Pandemic and Beyond.” Waze is a navigation app, owned by Google, which as the majority of apps also integrates ads in their platforms. Anasofia Sanchez, Country Manager for Mexico Waze, and Andrew Kandel, Head of Sales North America, explained how they were able to provide the best support for brands during the lockdown, without the intention of making consumers leave their homes.

Understanding consumer behavior, the drastic changes caused by the pandemic, and how people adapted, allowed Waze Mexico to identify new business opportunities and ways to engage with consumers. Latin America is a region that is just getting used to services like Uber Eats, so this was their opportunity to show all that Waze could do for their clients. Whereas in North America, delivering is part of their culture at this point, so they focused more on BOPUS (curve side/online pickup), since people were visiting fewer stores.

Data also played a big part that contributed to the growth of Waze during the pandemic. In North America, their data reflected that people were looking for ways to treat themselves during the pandemic to feel a little more normal. Waze partnered with Uber Eats to please those at home who didn’t feel like cooking by inviting them to take a break and order whatever they pleased. In Mexico, there were a few barriers such as having different lockdowns and stages that varied in each region and having only supermarkets, pharmacies, and other necessary businesses opened.

However, with their own data, they were able to identify new patterns that consumers were showing, such as shopping locally, towards CPG (consumer packaged goods). One of the brands they got to work with was “Bodega Aurrera” a Mexican supermarket that elaborated on the concept of “Mama Lucha” who’s a character known in the region-- all thanks to their valuable insights. Although 2021 seems like it is going to be the continuation of 2020, last year has taught advertisers a lesson about how to rapidly adapt to unexpected circumstances. But as Andrew Kandel said, 

“be ready to capture your audience back when they’re ready to return.”

With all of this valuable information about how creativity and opportunities lie in the good interpretation of data, I was curious to know how consumers’ behaviors evolved on digital platforms. In this panel called “When Challenges Turn Into Opportunities in the Digital World” Hispanic Sales and Ops Director in Mercado Ads, Pablo Beltra, Lina Orozco, E-commerce and digital marketing manager, L´Oréal Colombia, and Facundo Sosa, Consumer Engagement Manager Home Care Unilever Argentina, discussed the adjustments they had to do during the pandemic, how they were able to manage it and how that helped them to innovate.

I was so interested in finding out how a product like L´Oréal, which basically means one needs to step out of their home in order to use, and Unilever products that are not common in the e-commerce industry, found a way to stay connected with their audience while excelling at innovations, sales, and creativity. L´Oréal observed the rise of new homemade videos of people dying their hair or doing their nails at home and took that as the initial spark for their innovation. They implemented QR codes for consumers to reach their nearby locations where products were available. Not only that but they also implemented tools that integrate physical and digital experiences, such as trying on some of their products online, and real-time voice assistance with dermatologists and hair stylists, who also generated consumer satisfaction and sales.

Although L´Oréal and Uniliver have already experienced the digital world before the pandemic, they both admitted that the work that was done during the pandemic was thanks to the amount of data they were able to collect-- since people were relying on the digital world more than ever before. Unilever contributes their digital growth to the massive amount of data that they were able to get from a VPN they own. They were able to use those metrics to build consumer-based campaigns, as well as working on the segmentation of audiences for more refined targeting. Sosa said that with the data they collected 

“[they] no longer interrupted their audience while they were consuming certain types of online content, instead, [they] build their content into that content seamlessly, delivering it to the correct people at the right time.”

One of the many advantages of joining the digital industry as a brand is that digital metrics allow for ad campaign optimization in real-time that lets brands make decisions on the spot and see an immediate ROI. The versatility of digital metrics is that it is practical for audience segmentation and for understanding and adapting to new consumer behaviors. L´Oréal, Unilever, and Mercado Libre heavily relied on data to better understand their consumer needs during the pandemic. Orozco said that 

“getting to know the consumer, correct segmentation, and delivering the right message were key factors for us in 2020 that permitted us to optimize all of our campaign’s objectives in real-time.” 

Digital marketing in Latin America has been heavily relying on Full Funnel: awareness, interest, desire, action. With this, they confirmed that branding and performance can and must work together for online searches to stop being unbranded.