Public health messaging surrounding the pandemic is a unique study in strategic communications as the government seeks to influence resident behaviour through a combination of incentives, restrictions and appeals to both common sense and emotions.
The Government (generically speaking) can be both all-powerful and simultaneously unable to effect action and change. This is not unique to the system of governance or whether there is a charismatic or effective leader present. The means of securing changes in actions, behaviours or perspectives of residents in a city or country is always reliant on how well the government can sell in and through their vision, goals and objectives.
This is quite like a commercial organisation having to find product-market fit, create use cases for solutions that customers want, execute in ways to encourage discovery, awareness and education of these solutions, and convince customers to pay these solutions.
The COVID-19 pandemic gifts us a strategic communications case study happening in real-time
With the current COVID-19 pandemic, we can observe in real-time the way governments and healthcare regulators create positioning, key messages, supporting messages, campaigns with a call-to-action, including the use of incentives, restrictions and associations to create awareness about pandemic challenges and problems.
There is the education component as objectives and messages shift to tackle the priorities associated with the use of or the abuse of national resources.
For example, when ICU hospital beds are in high demand, or when healthcare manpower resources are stretched due to large numbers of walk-in cases at A&E departments.
We get to see how successful the conversion process is, through metrics such as vaccination rates, opening of travel lanes and both the tightening and relaxing of social gathering numbers.
From a goal-setting perspective, we see usage of stages and measurements as a means of visually demonstrating milestones and mini-goals, that are used to both build confidence for the path ahead, and retroactively reinforcing credibility with successful outcomes.
We can help you fix and problem solve for growth and revenue scenarios such as market entry, market expansion, product and service launches through a strategic communications approach.
Send an email to connect@wearebrandutility.com OR book an exploratory consultation through this link OR complete this form and we will connect with you shortly.
We are Brand Utility is a strategic communications and business consultancy. Our principal consultant is a registered management consultant, certified and recognised by the Institute of Management Consultants Singapore.
We work with brands in the corporate, professional services, retail, travel and technology spaces.
The importance of playbooks, practice and perspective in a strategic communications tool kit
As with commercial entities (and the stock market), customers are creatures of comfort. They want to use historical actions and behaviours to project results and outcomes in the future.
This makes several of the tools strategic communications practitioners use more important in creating future campaigns than others. These tools generally fall into the categories of playbooks, scenario/simulation practice and perspective.
With playbooks, we can look at best-in-class, and previous best practice tackling similar challenges in the past and think about how to adapt these insights and lessons into present-day solutions. The SARS playbook helped Singapore initially during the onset of COVID-19. Some of the highlights included the Disease Outbreak Response System Condition (DORSCON) framework, the infrastructure and training of healthcare professionals (HCP) and workers (HCW) and the recognition that public engagement and education was critical.
A call-out from the playbook would be the regularly participation with training protocols and practicing on scenarios by HCPs and HCWs. This is like many commercial entities setting up, testing and practicing with their business continuity plans. At a smaller scale, there are insights to gain from functions and teams practicing on multiple crisis scenarios, and even milestone achievement scenarios.
Another tool that strategic communications practitioners bring to the table anytime positioning and messaging is required, is that of perspective. This perspective is typically honed through the acquisition of context and understanding when dealing with customers, observing and responding to email and social media channels as well as negotiating compromises between functions about the positioning of value customers derive.
With the pandemic, feedback and observations that healthcare protocols were becoming confusing, that residents were upset about being unable to travel for business (or to reconnect with family) and that the alphabet soup of actions (created for efficiency) was becoming onerous would help the government team formulate policy and the accompanying messaging.
Take-aways for brands navigating through the pandemic
We shared the following suggestions with clients on how to emerge stronger into the endemic phase.
Pay attention to the Government’s announcements and how it can either create opportunities for your solutions or signal a short period of hibernation (perhaps to prepare for a quick restart)
Create or update scenario plans (e.g. reduction of social gathering numbers means a pivot to D2C actions) and the accompanying messaging ahead of the announcement, in order to become more efficient, and endure less disruption to resources and team dynamics
Use the time to rediscover and re-engage with customers, especially those that might have changed or adapted their consumption behaviour and are likely to retain the new behaviour in an endemic
Prepare and get to know new technology and digital tools, for example, CRM or automation and train your talent in the use of these tools
Seek out, do a chemistry check, and begin negotiations with potential partners and collaborators that are typically the most time-consuming elements of any discussion in order to be quick to launch a programme or campaign when the timing is right
We are Brand Utility is a strategic communication and business consultancy business consultancy. We work with brands in the corporate, professional services, retail, travel and technology spaces.
We offer strategy and tactics to support growth outcomes - revenue, scale, regional expansion and market entry – for our clients.
Areas of support include:
Strategic communications: Approach to market, brand concept and map, positioning, messaging, story and narrative, thought leadership
Marketing: Campaign/programme planning, story-based marketing execution, digital marketing, community amplification, content planning and production, go-to-market execution
Lead generation and growth marketing: Digital advertising, social media advertising, social commerce, e-commerce
Integration of marketing with business operations: We plan and execute as a marketing and/or PR lead for your brand
Discover more about our services at our website.
Photo by Hakan Nural on Unsplash
Comentarios