The challenge
Dentsu Aegis Network wanted to understand approaches to advertising during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Italian market. The research was intended to provide support to the advertising community, highlighting consumer perception of different advertising messages during lockdown.
They wanted to find out which of the following communication strategies was most effective:
- Go Ahead approaches that maintained messages created before the pandemic.
- Capitalize approaches that connected the brand to the current circumstances.
- Adaptive approaches that partially modified existing brand messages.
The solution
Dentsu Aegis Network and Toluna sampled 2,250 Italians representative of the population. The respondents were divided into 15 groups and each cluster was shown a specific advertisement within Toluna’s digital platform.
Reactions to the advertisements were measured by: how much the viewer liked the ad, consistency with the context of the pandemic, brand perception, and the consideration of the products or services advertised.
The research was conducted within three days at the end of April 2020, after consumers had spent five weeks in lockdown.
The impact
The research indicated that the Capitalize approach, with new tailored advertisements around the coronavirus, obtained the highest scores on all indicators. The Go Ahead approach that maintained existing brand messages was also perceived well. The Adaptive advertisements, with modified messaging to address their products during the pandemic, received the lowest ratings.
The findings of the research were published less than two weeks after fielding the study. It was critical to quickly launch and share the results so the advertising market could understand the potential impact of their messaging strategies.
