Opinion – New Age Advertising and marketing through the pandemic
Marlize Maree
What a roller coaster ride it continues to be when all of your resources depend largely on digital marketing. Not in a million years would I see the power of online / digital marketing than in this era amid a pandemic. With years of experience marketing big brands, it’s time to respect and leverage digital marketing platforms to weather this wave.
Much experience and theory compared to common practices around the world have been pooled to help organizations, especially the marketing departments, capitalize on the digital age that prevailed overnight.
Every marketer in this pandemic needs the following to ensure relevance, adaptability, and survival. Regardless of which product or service you offer, we have found a new following for the online shopping experience in a Namibian context.
In our small population compared to the rest of Africa, the latest statistics on online money transfers have sparked the perception that Namibians have switched to online banking services. A local newspaper reported in February that electronic money is currently the most popular way of sending money in Namibia. In 2020 alone, over N $ 40 billion was transacted via e-money platforms. What conclusion can marketers draw from this information? Smartphone banking is on the rise and the trustworthiness of sending money on such platforms is increasing. We must embrace such changes that we may not have speculated about a few years ago, amid no pandemic and traditional forms of buying and sending money.
The influence of social media could determine product or service needs. Amid social distancing and being restricted to receiving traditional prints, this platform persists and continues to shift from the norm to what our new environment must take advantage of. Through consultations with various institutions, many subscriptions have been postponed from traditional printing due to remote work. This should give marketers the platform to convince boardroom conversations that digital advertising is the cheapest and most effective, resulting in very detailed insights into their target market. This is an opportunity for businesses to take advantage of digital news and support their online advertising marketing budgets.
In years of branding, it is fair to say that the social media marketing tool has increased reliance on persecuted people or sites that lead more brand awareness and prospectus to an organization. A debate about whether or not the brand would suit your organization may remain open to further investigation.
It is important, according to Deleersnyder et al. (2009) that in times of crisis companies tend to reduce their expenditure on communication / advertising. This should be reconsidered after a decade of revolutionizing the field of product marketing and management. Businesses should recognize the power of online digital marketing platforms amid a pandemic in order to convince consumers of their relevance and to continue buying or using their services.
May every marketer embrace this beautiful time we are in and use the pandemic as further motivation in the boardroom to share the relevance and importance of digital marketing during the pandemic and the years to come.
* Marlize Maree is a marketing professional with extensive experience in marketing and advertising
2021-03-02 Employee reporter
