Brand image in times when war is on in the neighborhood

 

The image is a long-term element. It depends on many factors and activities, including those in crisis situations. For the second time in two years, Polish entrepreneurs have faced a communication challenge.

 

We are facing such a situation not only in Poland, but in the entire Eastern part of Europe, whose inhabitants strongly identify with the current situation in Ukraine.

The political and social situation is not the subject of this article. As specialists we would like to draw your attention to the communication of brands during the crisis.

The PR staffs of the biggest brands modify their communication in such a way as to be in harmony with the mood of the society.

We focus our work with clients who are based in the West on monitoring Polish media and patience.

We want to strengthen the belief that although business is going on and sales targets are still important for companies, it is now necessary to look at marketing from the perspective of the audience – not AVE columns (advertising equivalent).

A crisis is a moment for a brand that can destroy it commercially or launch it into the skies of adoration by audiences in a particular region.

We believe that small agencies, which identify with their clients more than media corporations, are able to assess the current mood of the local society faster and with more empathy. This is the principle we adopt at Party Projekt.

We reinforce the belief that advertising, catchy social media campaigns and entertaining content will now do brands more harm than good. This does not mean that communication with the audience should be suspended completely. What is important here is the content we can feed them with. This communication should be uplifting, empathetic but objective. We need to remember that our audience has the right to have different views, and we are here to bring good energy – not judgment. We can reduce activity, but we should not “disappear”. If we have the opportunity and feel an inner mission to participate in charity actions – let’s do it, but the necessary condition is that our intentions must be completely pure. If our actions are driven by the desire to increase the reach – it will result in a communication failure. The same situation will happen if we engage our brand too much in informing about the crisis.

Personal brands – sportsmen, stars of the stage, influencers, who make their media into arrays of unverified announcements – find this out. Recipients accuse them of artificially building reach in a crisis, lack of reliability. The situation is different when their huge reach is used to support charitable actions with proven and trusted background.

Going back to our experience with Western clients – leaving advertising campaigns that are displayed to Polish social media users in between the coverage wars can be a serious damage to the image of each of these brands – it will create an impression of indifference or even ignorance. That’s why we encourage you to check if your agency has stopped its activities and has prepared a specific crisis plan for your brand. In tomorrow’s post we will talk about crisis plans that are worth preparing, regardless of whether you are a company, a one-person business, or a business called a family.

 

We wish you a lot of good, believing deeply in world peace.

28.02.2022, Marta Materek