fbpx
Motivating Your Team During COVID-19

Motivating Your Team During COVID-19

Every Monday at 11AM, River Direct (RD) has a company-wide meeting to discuss campaign strategy and media performance for the previous week.  The entire RD staff squeezes into our main conference room to discuss media and the overall DTC marketplace. We are a small agency with a very family-oriented culture, so the meeting is also a great time to catch up with one another.

Unfortunately, that weekly gathering came to an abrupt halt with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the initial weeks of COVID-19, there was naturally a great deal of uncertainty. River Direct employees started to work from home, and everyone had a lot of questions, but nobody seemed to have any answers.

How long are we going to work from home? Should I wear a mask, don’t wear a mask, how many times a day should I wash my hands, what should I use?  Am I going to get sick, am I going to lose my job, are our clients going to stop advertising?  What’s going to happen to my family and friends?

All valid questions and concerns, but at the end of the day, we still had a business to run and clients that depended on us. But how do you motivate your team during a pandemic?

EASY, a good old-fashioned wager.  As VP of Client Services, I wanted to keep things fun. Give our media team a seemingly UNREALISTIC GOAL and BET them that they couldn’t reach it. But what do you bet your team when they think the world is coming to an end? Money, stock options, gold bullion? BORING! So, without thinking it through fully, I said, “I will give myself a MOHAWK, if you are able to increase our billings (insert crazy percentage here)!”  At first, I immediately regretted what I said, but with the crazy number I threw out, I wasn’t TOO worried about it.

The media team had just one week to increase our overall billings, which is not a ton of time by any means. By the end of the week they had gotten within 5% of the goal and almost won the bet. A smart man who loves his hair would have learned his lesson and walked away. Not this guy, I doubled down. They came so close on the initial bet, so I felt it was only sporting to give them another shot. Our budgets were surging, and our clients were also doing very well. But push as they may, the team came up short once again.  Since our budgets kept growing, I decided to roll the dice one last time, but this time, the team needed to hit an even higher goal.  I thought: There was no way that was going to happen. So far, my salt and pepper locks had evaded the cold steel jaws of a Phillips trimmer. 

Once again, I anxiously watched the budgets grow by the minute. I knew my hair was gone when someone added two huge high-profile airings on a prime network. The team started chirping, “Get those clippers ready!”, and “Can’t wait to see your new do!”.  I pulled the budget report one last time, and sure enough, our team surpassed their goal. When I told my wife I lost the bet, she just snickered and looked at me like I was a child. Being a man of my word, I got my first ever mohawk, and I kind of liked it!

Fast forward to the Monday Zoom meeting, everyone had their cameras on except me. I thought that maybe they forgot about our bet and nobody would notice I had mine off. Not so much. As soon as I logged on, everyone said, “Turn on your camera, let’s see it!”. I clicked “Start Video,” and there I was, a grown man with a mohawk on a Zoom meeting in front of the entire company.

 

It’s never fun to lose your  hair as a result of a wager, but in this case, it was a fun way to motivate our team and keep things light.  

At the end of the day, a lot of great things came from this silly little wager. We hit our highest budgets to date this year, everyone qualified for a nice incentive, our clients had great results, and I got the haircut I always wanted, but was too scared to get. Most importantly, it was a great motivator and fun distraction that took our minds off of the pandemic for a brief moment… so it was ALL WORTH IT!

 

To stay updated on all things River Direct, from new market trends to industry insights, follow us on Facebook,  Instagram, and subscribe to our newsletter.

COVID-19: Potential Short-Term & Long-Term Effects on Advertising

COVID-19: Potential Short-Term & Long-Term Effects on Advertising

Just four weeks ago, before our world was upended by the coronavirus strain known as COVID-19, no one would have foreseen that weeks later, our healthy economy would come crashing to a grinding halt.  This happened at an unprecedented rate, and was so quick in its onset.  With most of the nation confined to our homes without outside contact, many are fearful what the future holds.  

As a media agency, we have been through crises in the past of political, social and financial natures.  We have survived some of nation’s most trying times, including 9/11 and the Great Recession of 2008. Through our experience, we have seen certain trends and are anticipating that this may play out in a “similar” fashion.  Being in the direct response and DTC industry, our benefit in the past, and as it is right now, is our ability to know “how the population is responding to our advertising.”  We can see if they are going to the websites, calling the phones and ordering the products.  We have seen in the past and are experiencing it today, that Direct to Consumer products that make things easier at home are the ones that will trend (i.e., home cooking, exercise, education, well-being, vitamins, minerals and other supplements).  People will be looking for ways to save money and feel better about themselves (home care, beauty) as they exit the “quarantine” and wait for the economics to adjust.

Due to shelter-in-home orders, viewership levels are up, but people are not necessarily responding in mass due to the economic downturn they are personally feeling or apprehensive about.  Thus, in trying times, River Direct works closely with TV stations and digital publishers to make sure that the rates being charged, are commensurate with the audience delivered and the orders being generated.  General advertisers have a tendency to pull media when a crisis of this nature occurs and thus, media rates decline. 

Many of our clients have asked us how we anticipate things playing out in the advertising/media buying world.  Due to the unchartered nature of the current crisis, there’s no way of knowing – however, we offer a few scenarios: 

Best-case Scenario: Social distancing works and the virus peters out by early May/June.   People begin to go back to work and receive paychecks, economy starts to improve.  The media will start to pick up slowly as people gain confidence.  People will pull out their wallets and order product.  The general-rate advertisers will come back into the space “slowly” (Q3) allowing direct response/DTC to take advantage of the situation from May going forward….4th quarter ends up being more aggressively pursued and election dollars go into the market as planned.

Delayed-Recovery Scenario: The virus starts to disappear between June and end of July….in direct response we are able to take advantage knowing how people are feeling and make it through third quarter and hope there are no virus rebounds and anticipate a strong 4th quarter for direct response; with General advertisers having a bit more trepidation but still engaged.  Election dollars are there and rates are reasonable.

Lengthy-Recovery Scenario: The virus is not contained, and has a resurgence in places where we thought it had gone away and doesn’t disappear until late summer.  Economy is slow in getting back to speed and trepidation continues to occur in the market place.   The summer months’ rates decline precipitously and people are not confident and don’t have extra monies to spend and are not purchasing product.  Personal financial burdens are tough and advertising in general is soft.  We always have the advantage in knowing what to pay based upon response, but the fear is people slow down their purchasing because of the economic setback.  The ad industry for 4thquarter is soft for general advertisers and those doing campaign advertising will get the ads for a very low rate due to decreased demand. 

So here we are in early April, trying to predict the future, as everyone else in the world is trying to do the same.  In our hearts, we are anticipating the “Best-case Scenario” and at worst, hoping for the “Delayed-Recovery Scenario.”  Most importantly, we are all praying that our nation is able to work together to keep the loss of lives at a minimum, and to recover as quickly as possible on all fronts.

Related Articles:

https://hbr.org/2009/04/how-to-market-in-a-downturn-2

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/349698/marketers-time-to-dust-off-maslows-hierarchy-of.html

EMOTIONAL ADVERTISING: How Great Storytelling Can Strike a Chord with Your Audience

EMOTIONAL ADVERTISING: How Great Storytelling Can Strike a Chord with Your Audience

Every marketer understands the challenges of creating impactful content that resonates with their audience. It takes a lot of research and strategizing, including understanding your target audience, how to reach them, and putting the right content in front of them that accomplishes the marketing goal, whether it be generating brand awareness, sales or leads. 

In today’s digital age, content is EVERYWHERE and people are constantly bombarded with advertisements. This makes it ever more difficult for marketers to sift through all the “noise” and to create a marketing piece that breaks through to their audience. So, how do we, as marketers, get around that? The answer is, great storytelling. 

One of my all-time favorite marketing campaigns is the Subaru LOVE campaign. It is Father-Daughter storytelling at its best, but as a Mom with two boys, it still resonated with me immensely. The “Baby Driver” advertisement from the campaign shows a Dad going over safety driving precautions and handing over his car keys to his teenage daughter, who he still sees as his little five-year-old girl.

In this commercial, Subaru cleverly told a story filled with emotional elements that immediately struck a chord with me: 

  • Seeing our children grow up before our eyes, literally in a flash 
  • The desire to protect our children and make sure they are safe, always…especially once
    they start driving 
  • The tendency to view our children as children, even as they grow up and become adults. 

My eyes welled up with tears by the end of the commercial and seven years later, I still remember it. Subaru’s campaign goal was to sell the safety of their cars but they found a creative way to tell a story, deliver that message, AND make an emotional connection with their audience without having to be literal about it. 

When it comes to great storytelling, here are some key things to keep in mind. Every story should include: 

  • Character(s) 
  • Conflict/Lesson – makes a human connection 
  • Resolution – wrap up story, but should include a CTA 

Storytelling Best Practices: 

  • Use content to create emotional appeal 
  • Be consistent and authentic 
  • Keep story clear and concise

Digital Marketers are tasked with having to create new content regularly and it can be daunting to come up with fresh ideas all the time. Once you are ready to start the content process, the constant to remember is great storytelling. Remember that once you come up with a new piece of content, you can find creative ways of repurposing that content by changing the format, or slightly altering it for different audiences.

For more information on the latest trends and news on all things Marketing and Advertising, be sure to follow River Direct on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram!

To learn more about how to incorporate storytelling into your marketing efforts and examples of great storytelling content, visit the below links: