The pandemic has presented unique challenges to both business and personal life. There are companies that have succumbed to the situation and closed down, while others managed to make the best of what happened. These are the companies that have managed to turn to non-traditional work arrangements, like flexible agreements and remote work.
Since the move to online work, people have understood that it’s where they’ll be spending most of their time for the foreseeable future. The rise of digital devices surely helped, of course. It became easier for people to transact digitally with each other. Employees could receive their salary through services offering online cash transfer services. Work continued despite the lockdowns.
Advertising is another of the many jobs which have been brought from the office to the home. With a lot of industries making a successful transition from the office to remote work, let’s take a look at how advertising could take hold of this opportunity.
Capitalizing on the move from traditional to digital
The pandemic presented a unique opportunity for many industries, including advertising. Most activities that required a human touch went to the Web. With a lot of people staying at home, the Web also became one of the most visited places ever.
On average, according to the World Economic Forum’s white paper, 16% of people across different countries like Germany, China, India, the U.K., the U.S., and South Korea are currently paying for daily news online. About 53% of the people living in those countries have pledged to buy their news in this format in the future.
If that’s not something that gets companies actively campaigning to put their brand across different digital channels, then that’s a lot of opportunities wasted. Clearly, with this, digital is the future.
Advertisers shouldn’t go for broke
There are many companies that didn’t manage to get out of the wilderness that is the pandemic, and study says that this shouldn’t be the case for advertising industries. There is still a channel—the digital channel—where brands and advertisers can send their message across, often to an audience that already paid the premium to see this content.
Even the customers know that their content will share space with advertisers. Effective advertising will let these consumers see the products in a timely manner. You never know whether your target audience is actively seeking the product you’re advertising.
COVID-19 has changed consumer behavior
There’s no one else to blame for the change in consumer behavior other than COVID-19.
With an empty audience, there’s no sense in paying for what could very well be wasted opportunities. Traditional advertising has gone a bit dead in the water since people have been told to stay at home. You can’t advertise to an empty cinema, and no one will see your transit ads if the buses don’t run.
However, since the start of the pandemic, the consumption of people for the Web went up. Digital advertisers should take heed of the changing trend and act accordingly. This is one of those moments where a missed opportunity to adjust to the situation could prove fatal for those who will not be able to capitalize.
Convince brand managers to switch to online advertising
There are a lot of benefits that online advertising can provide a company. Sadly, most companies at this time prefer to keep their money close by. That means that any kind of advertising, at this time, is too risky even if it means some improvement for their company’s image.
There are others who saw the benefits and pushed forth, but the pandemic did make some people apprehensive of success. In truth, there never has been a better time for trying out things and seeing if they will work. That includes trying out online advertising and seeing whether it’ll work.
The long-term effects should be studied as well
The pandemic is something that’s never before seen in human history. It’s highly likely that people will be influenced by this event, and the effect will be seen for a long time. That also goes for how people will consume media moving forward.
Services like pay-TV as well as digital channels will experience an upheaval. Pay-TV is expected to see a decline in services, while digital channels will multiply as more services start to migrate from traditional services to the next generation.
There is still a long way to go before the pandemic is said to have been successfully defeated. People should expect to start to see a gradual shift towards digital services and that will be for the best.