Rapid Development of Marketing in a Pandemic and Softer Influencers
Marketing expert Kristján Schram joined Kristjóna Guðbrandsdóttir for a coffee and a chat about the evolution of marketing during the pandemic and people's increased demand for substance and quality. Kristján says that companies are paying much more attention to the big picture in marketing than before, and many have decided to make bold but timely changes.
“If you take a 5,000-foot view, you can see that companies are going back to strategy development. Now is the opportunity to take a step back and think about how we talk to our customers and how we want to appeal to them in the future. What changed the most during the pandemic, of course, is that commerce moved online, and something that should have taken five years took eight weeks, which is incredible. Companies that weren't ready for digital development really had to get a move on,” says Kristján, who mentions another important development in marketing: customers are increasingly looking for trust and for companies to genuinely stand for something that matters. “This is a big, wide-reaching change. People want to do business with companies they can trust and that stand for something. Values started to matter more to people who were stuck at home and had the time to think about what's happening in the world.”
Goddur recently discussed in a podcast people's longing for authenticity. And now so-called 'gen-influencers' are emerging, which could perhaps be called 'genuine influencers'. Or do you have a better word for it?
“These are a kind of softer influencer. I'm somewhat familiar with this; they are influencers who aren't trying to sell. They are trying to do good. The Finnish government hired 130 influencers, and their goal wasn't to sell something but to get Finns to take good care of themselves. This brings a completely new angle to this influencer market, which is very popular and fits well with the current wave of people wanting to be spoken to in a different way. Not just as a consumer, but as a thinking person.”
Watch the coffee chat with Kristján here.
