How Italian companies showed solidarity through advertising during the Covid crisis

Encourage your audience to stay safe while using your product or service

Can your product/service be used or purchased from home? Then encourage your audience to do so! This is the first rule of advertising during the Covid crisis: improve your online channels and make your funnel as smooth as possible. Many Italian brands, including the national postal service and several banks and universities focused on this aspect during the first wave. They implemented new features to allow customers to perform actions and manage services from home, that would usually require a visit to their offices. As a result, most people developed a new attitude towards advertising during the Covid crisis, starting to see it less as a commercial endeavour and more as a form of public service announcement, and scouring it for information on how to access certain products and services without leaving their homes.

Call us today to launch your brand in Italy!

Don’t be afraid to include links to official sources

We all know that the golden rule of advertising is about focusing on the relationship between the brand and the audience, leaving everything else out. These, however, are not normal times and a brand’s calls to action should not be pointing exclusively towards purchases. A number of Italian brands started incorporating the official website of the Health Ministry, with the updated guidelines on how to limit the spread of the virus. At this time, you might well risk losing a few clients down the funnel, in order to contribute to the circulation of correct and complete information over the ongoing crisis. If a few clients leave your website before making a purchase, it will mean you encouraged them to be responsible and educate themselves. In the long run, this will benefit your brand awareness, but most of all it means you provided a positive contribution to the safety of others.

Be transparent about the safety of your employees

If your company has kept working through the first wave, you’ll probably be able to keep going through the second one too. Whether your employees can work from home or they are “essential workers” and need to travel to their workplace, it is your job to guarantee their safety. And you should be clear about the safety measures you are implementing to do so. While it is your duty, of course, to inform your colleagues and employees of any precautions your company is taking, it is also a good idea to make the information available to your customers and the general public. Most Italian brands have published their internal guidelines and explained how they were planning to guarantee their workers’ financial stability and personal safety through the crisis. Go into detail and don’t be afraid to share the kind of content that normally doesn’t make it past in-office presentation. Share photos of the kind of PPE you have made available to your workforce and information on social distancing in the workplace, testing, hygiene measures, home office hours, and shifts. This kind of information might seem uninteresting during normal times, but it has become an essential part of responsible advertising during the Covid crisis.

Call us today to create your next marketing campaign!