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We asked our global network of offices how their clients were responding to the pandemic and economic downturn. There were many consistent themes and a few nuances by region \u2013 accelerating transformation, customer-centricity, transformed media mixes and resourcing implications being just a few. Here are the key findings:<\/strong><\/p>\n What is the lasting impact on brands\u2019 marketing strategies and plans going forward?<\/strong><\/p>\n The crisis has accelerated existing trends for: more radical and urgent digital transformation across the marketing ecosystem; Customer-centricity and the digitisation of the customer journey; and the use of data from all touch-points.<\/p>\n Businesses seem to be falling into two categories when it comes to ecommerce:<\/p>\n But for those that are successful, ecommerce is going to accelerate growth and weaken the traditional retail approach even more.<\/p>\n In summary, doing less but more effectively (and digitally) will be the focus of marketing strategies and plans moving forward.<\/p>\n What do you think are the biggest problems that clients are facing?<\/strong><\/p>\n There is no \u2018blue print\u2019 for the situation brands are facing and less robust data for decision making: the scale and duration of the economic impact on global markets and nations is unclear; the behaviour of consumers is unpredictable; and the trajectory of the pandemic is still uncertain and varies country to country.<\/p>\n How could clients use this time as a catalyst for digital transformation? <\/strong><\/p>\n What changes have you made to the Observatory International\u2019s own ways of working do you expect to continue to use?<\/strong><\/p>\n Video calls in one form or another are here to stay. Our own operations will benefit from continued regular \u2018short sharp\u2019 team updates via video call \u2013 10 minutes to get up to date, make sure everyone is OK and know what is going on. And networking and new connections over video calls can be as meaningful and productive as face to face. All of this challenges the need to travel for short meetings.<\/p>\n Our clients have quickly grown accustomed to using video calls for quarterly reviews between client teams and their agencies and our Search and Selection process has been adapted to work very effectively in a virtual setting.<\/p>\n On a lighter note \u2013 what amusing things have you seen on a video call? <\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019ve seen the inevitable cats appearing and walking across keyboards as well as one of our team\u2019s two-year old daughter trying to feed a cat that appeared on screen.<\/p>\n The COVID motto of \u201cyou are on mute!\u201d has become a familiar cry. And we\u2019ve discovered the way to ensure the video call is kept short \u2013 spill tea over the keyboard, followed by a blank screen!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We asked our global network of offices how their clients were responding to the pandemic and economic downturn. There were many consistent themes and a few nuances by region \u2013 accelerating transformation, customer-centricity, transformed media mixes and resourcing implications being just a few.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[151,152,155,153,160],"class_list":["post-2136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-en-us","tag-agency-relationship-management-en-us","tag-agency-roster-modelling-en-us","tag-marketing-trends-en-us","tag-observations-en-us","tag-ways-of-working-en-us"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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