People around the world have been affected by a virus called COVID-19. COVID-19’s proliferation mechanism precisely follows viral marketing and almost places itself in people through word of mouth marketing. For us as marketers, it is important for our company’s publicity to rapidly become popular and find its position in the consumer’s mind.
Despite the concerns and problems that the C virus has created for the public, lessons can be learned from how it works and how to apply it in marketing, and its success, just as many inventions and innovations that are inspired by nature. And by carefully examining the performance of COVID-19’s virus in societies, we come to a few key points that we will describe below.
The virus enters the human body very slowly and quietly, stabilising its position. Many large companies launch advertising campaigns to position their products and services and spend huge amounts of money to introduce their product or service to the target market. This has repercussions, such as competitors entering the market to thwart corporate promotional activities and even exposing the advantages and disadvantages of the product, and the interesting thing is that the rumours are more influential than the reputation.
COVID-19 doesn’t need your permission to enter your world. It can definitely be said that 100% of people with the virus have not welcomed it, and even if they were aware of it, they would have taken maximum capability to fight. In any case, the virus has done its job and has positioned itself in people’s minds. Advertising of products and services must also be such that even if the person is not the consumer of our product or service, it has a place in his or her mind.
For example, many students may not be interested in Microsoft’s famous product (Surface pro family), but this product has positioned itself as a luxury product. This has the advantage of being able to introduce our product even if the customer is not buying the product in the event of encountering another person. This is the same as COVID-19 in a way that may not be infected by a person but transmitted in the face of another person who is biologically susceptible to the virus.
As we know, every thesis has antithesis. So it can be concluded that for every marketing strategy the company adopts, competing companies will try to counteract it, just as doctors and specialists in the laboratories do in a day-to-day effort to find corona treatment. Marketers should therefore always seek to learn and not just rely on the traditional marketing theories presented by Kotler and others.
The striking feature of the virus is that it is rarely taken seriously all around the world, and despite the advice of physicians and government officials to stay home and quarantine and the frequent use of health products, many people still welcome it. In the meantime, if there is a particular event all around, it will greatly help thwart the efforts of doctors and government officials. This means that in the corona life cycle, after introducing and growing and reaching the saturation stage, it can return to the growth stage before an event declines.
So the lesson that can be drawn from COVID’s response to its competitors (doctors) is that it can always be prevented from declining a marketing campaign by running events, sales promotions, coupons, and incentives. Eventually the virus will be contained but its effects will remain in people’s bodies and one day it will manifest itself in another way. The impact that marketing and advertising activities will have on customers’ minds is undeniable, and it should be attempted to influence their mind set like COVID-19 so that they can be re-energised later.
