The lack of a focused response from the Federal government has passed beyond frustration and has simply become Federal policy. There won’t be a coordinated effort with specific goals and strategies, a clear direction that all efforts are enlisted toward a common goal. Empathy is in short supply in the response as it is an obstacle to characterizing 80,000+ deaths as victory. Tough break, y’all, but think how bad it could have been if it weren’t for the heroic efforts of our Leader! Ok, back to work. Nothing to see here.
One element of our society had no problem reacting quickly and effectively to a new world order suddenly thrust upon us, changing how we engage anew. All parts of life have been altered by the presence of a deadly virus that resists all efforts to control it other than fleeing from it. How can we preserve who we are, what we are at our core, when all is altered, strange, removed? People just wanted to feel like everything was ok, that they would come out of this in some recognizable form, still an American at some core level, preserving some essence of who we are, deep down.
Madison Avenue has your back.
Few institutions react quicker to changes in our zeitgeist. Superstars explode from obscurity almost overnight if they have just a moment that singles them out to the masses. Careers are made in an instant, products become essentials, all due to the efforts of the masterminds of public opinion.
In the era of virus and economic contraction, advertising has never faced such a daunting challenge or a more existential moment for its very survival. With financial insecurity as the norm for the greater part of the population, it is no small task to separate the people from their dollars, and with so few of those dollars available it is that much more critical to do it effectively.
It wasn’t long after a National Emergency was declared to begin the tepid response to the crisis that advertising appeared acknowledging a new reality. In no time a tsunami of such appeals appeared on TV, radio and in print media. Seemingly within hours Madison Avenue had assimilated the new realities and begun crafting the new pitch.
For the advertising community, if one could remain above the stark changes taking place, the crisis was opportunity. Few things in recent, or even extended, memory had created the kind of fear, longing, ennui, even anger that this moment engendered, and these are the basic building blocks for a successful campaign. Always in need of a new problem to solve with a great product affordably priced, Covid-19 was certain to provide enough problems and angst to last a decade. This was like the election of the Donald for comedians. A gift that just would not stop giving.
The question became how to turn chaos into cash. While actual solutions to the pandemic were elusive to say the least, Madison Avenue would experiment with how to make the disruption profitable, or at least survivable.
It wouldn’t take long to see what the big-league influencers had come up with, and there were different lanes to these efforts that became recognizable surprisingly quickly.
Strategy I. Ignore it altogether. Continue advertising as if nothing had happened, appealing to the viewers longing to have this behind us, to live again like nothing had occurred. A fuzzy familiarity would be soothing and appeal to a nostalgia of those by-gone days of December.
Strategy II. Empathy. Oneness. Solidarity. We are in this together. We’ll get through. Look at all the heroic and caring things people are doing for each other. If we are “one” we can not be defeated. We’ll get through this! This category would frequently start the pitch with “In these times of challenge and uncertainty…”
Strategy III. Patriotism. This was an important category, as it was perhaps the only angle to get the money from the deniers, and they clearly had some disposable income. Current pricing on an AR-15 style assault rifle ranged from $500 – $2000 at the time of this writing. Clearly if the case could be made that this product or service was as American as apple pie a bit of cash might be wedged out of these people’s ammo budget. Less extreme elements would also be motivated by love of country, but this angle had the benefit of not discriminating against “freedom fighters”. These ads emphasized the country’s greatness and the impossibility of anything changing that, ever.
Strategy IV. Humor. Comedy appears in many forms, and different approaches to elicit smiles or laughter in Covid advertising have been attempted, but one strategy has gained a foothold that The Avenue has found effective. There are new norms, new and strange habits that have become so ubiquitous so quickly that referring to them brings a familiarity and a sense of belonging while acknowledging an undeniable absurdity to it all. The Zoom call is a great example of this strategy. The new etiquette of such calls are becoming known, and the failure to have recognized them while on a call can be hilarious. The best case I’ve seen has been the Progressive Insurance representatives on a Zoom call. This is not an endorsement of the product, but it is a full throated endorsement of using terrific talents and allowing them to do what they do within the confines of the genre. All our favorite Progressive characters appear and one or two new favorites are introduced. One thing that has curiously defined the Progressive campaign, even before the virus but continuing unabated, is the company’s consistent portrayal of their employees being tone deaf or incompetent, all while being empathic toward the customer. The Progressive team in one ad appears out of a cornfield and terrifies a farmer and his family by their zombie-like appearence, and afterwards Flo congratulates everyone for their calm demeanor. They are consistently clueless. I know of no other campaign that is such a self parody, and it has huge traction with its audience.
So if you’re feeling a little down, fire up the TV. The show you choose is incidental. Retail therapy is not.
Healing in America comes in 60 second treatments.