Our clients are already starting to feel the impact of the effects of Coronavirus: in the last week the number of responses they are getting to their press ads have dropped and we have clients with a lead/appointment/sale model who are seeing up to 30% of their appointments being cancelled.
Again we are faced with uncertainty, in particular with what the Government will do next and how that impacts our lives and of course how far and wide this virus will spread.
Most of our clients don’t have a retail presence and they are far more focussed on generating sales than building a brand, so how do we ensure that their businesses continue to thrive in the current time (given we don’t have any clients selling anti-viral hand gel or loo rolls…)?
Firstly, stay light on your feet. We book the majority of space short term anyway, so that is easy – there will be less people out and about and buying newspapers, so it is highly likely that the circulations will take a hit in the next few weeks – especially if we go into ‘lock down’. There will be lots of space available as many clients (travel companies are doing it already) are cancelling space. People will still be buying newspapers though, so it just means you need to buy cheaper – stick with day to day short term and pick up some bargains
Secondly, up your TV advertising – there will be more people at home watching TV, the available inventory will increase and again there will be travel clients pulling airtime so it will be a buyers market. Higher TV consumption, lots of boredom = online shopping heaven! It is like the sweet spot between Christmas and New Year when the working population is off, you can therefore reach them with daytime time TV (far cheaper than peak airtime that you would usually have to buy to reach them) and more responsive as the programming is low engagement. So if you have a TV ad and you are an online retailer then you could really make the most of a bad situation.