Keep calm and carry on – how advertisers beat Covid

Those that retained their pre Covid advertising balance were two to three times more effective than campaigns that focused on special Covid messaging or harvesting short term demand.

Brands that retained their pre Covid ad spend were two to three times more effective than campaigns that focused on special Covid messaging. Image: NRMA Insurance and CHE Proximity’s award-winning 2020 Sloways ad. The campaign resulted in a 30 per cent increase in caravan insurance quotes year over year and 22 per cent increase in caravan insurance policies year over year.

The onslaught of Covid may have changed many things, but it didn’t change the fundamentals of advertising effectiveness, according to independent marketing consultant Rob Brittain.

After analysing a slew of ad campaigns that rolled out throughout 2020, the Melbourne-based researcher found that contrary to some views that marketing had dramatically changed forever, this was evidently not the case.

“During Covid we’ve seen some big changes in marketing strategy from companies, but for those that chose to keep calm and continue with what they were doing - on the proviso it wasn‘t insensitive in the situation being faced at the time - they were the ones that saw the most success,” Mr Brittain said.

“When advertising spend is plummeting, highly effective advertising has an even bigger opportunity to shine and this is what it did.”

Mr Brittain analysed the data from the Advertising Council of Australia (ACA) Effectiveness Database, which contains hundreds of ad campaign award entries that demonstrate effectiveness and proven results in the marketplace.

Above: Award winning NRMA Insurance Sloways ad from 2020 has had more than 4m views online

The marketing efforts studied were a combination of short term Covid reactionary campaigns and regular long-term brand building campaigns from 2020. Effectiveness for each campaign is measured via the impact on a consistent set of business metrics - including profit, sales revenue, customer acquisition and market share.

Overall, the 2020 advertising campaigns in the ACA’s effectiveness database were 20 per cent more effective than campaigns that ran in 2019. They were also the most effective group of campaigns Mr Brittain has seen in the four years since its launch.

“The ACA effectiveness database contains case studies dating back to 2017, but it’s the 2020 campaigns that have delivered, on aggregate, the strongest business results to date,” he said.

Mr Brittain said it’s important to delineate between different campaign types in 2020 as those that chose to pivot to short term/tactical Covid activity saw much weaker business results.

“These special ads had quickly become ubiquitous, were often stark and anxiety-raising to consumers, and many did not have the vital links to brand memory structures that are present in brand campaigns,” he said.

Independent marketing consultant Rob Brittain

Those that retained their pre Covid advertising balance were two to three times more effective than campaigns that focused on special Covid messaging or harvesting short term demand.

“Highly effective marketing worked even better during the pandemic and I suspect a lot of that was because a lot of advertising was withdrawn,” Mr Brittain said.

If marketing investment had been focused on continuing with the brand communications that the business was already doing, Mr Brittain said the impact of marketing on the business would have been much stronger and more effectively positioned the brand to take advantage of the economic recovery.

“In addition to this, the non-working investment required to produce new campaigns could have been used to fund higher investment in media and increase share of voice at a time when media costs were plummeting,” he said.

From a budget perspective, investment in 2020 campaigns studied typically declined in line with the rest of the market, with 71 per cent either maintaining or decreasing their share of voice versus the previous year.

“It’s clear that the severity of the decline in Australia’s advertising spend was also an over-reaction when compared to the reduction in household consumption expenditure,” Mr Brittain added.

Mr Brittain sees the 2020 recession as a testbed for the future, with the ACA data providing a window on the drivers of effectiveness for the next few years. In addition, the learnings will help inform marketing decisions so companies can navigate recessions much better in the future.

On April 12 the Advertising Council of Australia presents ‘The Work Behind The Work’: behind-the-scenes of the most effective ad campaigns from 2021