Anti-Marketing and the Coronavirus

No one could have ever predicted what has happened so far this year. Yes, I know, this has been said a million times already. Sorry.

Actually, I think we're all getting pretty sick of hearing how amazed people still are about all this. I know I am.

Lockdown hits its seventh week and I've stopped watching the daily government updates. I've stopped looking at all those spreadsheets and death bar graphs. I've even stopped watching the News because there's only one topic for 30 long minutes. I'm not being callous, but I've had enough. No one really knows what's going on, but they all love talking about it.

One: There's no vaccine yet.

Two: We shouldn't go out and hobnob with our mates till there is

one.

Three: Our businesses are going bankrupt and there's precious little we can do about it.

Four: Wear a mask. Don't wear a mask. Wear a mask if you've got one. Don't bother - they don't really work. But wear one on public transport because...

And that's just about it. It's just a case of hanging on in there until scientists can find an answer. Forget the journalists, the politicians and anyone on Peston. It all adds up to absolutely nothing. It's all smoke and mirrors.

So... let's look at something else.

Coronavirus falls somewhat brutally into what anti-marketeers call Accidental Marketing. Really. This is when something completely extraordinary and unpredictable happens which affects your business quite dramatically.

Take Chanel No.5 back in 50s. Pootling along nicely in department stores in the US, but not really outselling the competition. Then one day, Marilyn Monroe says it's the only thing she wears in bed at night! Next day... sales go off the chart! Now I'm not comparing Chanel No. 5 to Coronavirus, but there are similarities.

Accidental marketing can have bad repercussions. Think Gerald Ratner in the 60s and his ill-advised comments on how rubbish his products (jewellery) were. He thought the public would understand the joke. They didn't and he nearly went to the wall.

Then there's the toilet roll. The lovely inoffensive toilet roll. The Coronavirus breaks out early this year and someone is on hand to see and film a scuffle over a 12 pack in an Australian supermarket. The short clip rapidly goes viral and is even shown on Victoria Derbyshire on BBC 1 one morning. The reaction - we all want toilet rolls. There is no real reason for this, except that Australians have been seen fighting over them. That's enough. Herd instinct kicks in. We stampede to Morrison's and Tesco's and the rest is history. Cushelle and Andrex meet their annual sales targets in 24 mad hours and we can all now stare guiltily at daft stockpiles in our airing cupboards.

OK... let's take this to the next level.

Traditional marketing has no answers to what is happening today. If we base our business plans on the Marketing Mix, the 4 Ps and what a variety of SWOT and PESTLE diagrams tell us, we will rapidly join Gerald Ratner at the wall. It has no answer to a cataclysm like this. There are no contingency plans in all the books we have studied on how to run a business which try to address the sort of mayhem we are now all facing, apart from holding out our caps and begging from the government for a handout to keep us afloat.

Traditional marketing is great when economies are robust and systems are ticking over all along the production line. BUT... when all of that comes tumbling down... what do we do?

Panic!

Because there is no answer. Nothing. It's just staring into the abyss and shedding tears over years of hard grind disappearing in just two short months, unless we are lucky enough to be producing hand disinfectant dispensers or kitchen and toilet rolls - the lucky winners of the COVID marketing lottery.

Ironically, for those of us who are not winners, this is exactly the time that you should be turning to a new way. A way which just might have a few answers. It might not get you all out of the COVID swamp, but at least it offers a chance. Anti-marketing covers a broad range of possibilities which can be utilised. Everything from Engagement Marketing (really useful right now) to Principled Selling, Minimalism and even Retro Marketing. All are hugely different from traditional marketing and offer a breath of fresh air in dying markets.

It sounds daft, but the anti-marketeer will look at the Coronavirus and accept that it is just one of those accidental calamities that occur from time to time. You see, anti-marketing is built on postmodernism where everything is unstable and unpredictable and where chaos and mayhem are the norm. Accept that and you can then start the rebuilding process.

In the language school industry, schools already are reaching into the anti-marketing bag of tricks, without even knowing it. Teaching 'online' courses and promoting the whole online experience as a great alternative to normal face-to-face lessons would never have been even discussed this time last year, but is now seen as the only perceivable route to survival. The digital, hyper-real, virtual reality route. Lessons are now taught in a global online 'unreal' classroom by teachers who sometimes cannot even see their students.

Another major problem will come when this pandemic is over... and schools want to return to the 'normality' of marketing face-to-face courses again. Students currently being told how wonderful and ground-breaking online 'bespoke' programmes are, just might want to continue doing this and not bother to travel half way round the world for an expensive English course. It could just possibly be that schools desperately promoting online programmes now are sowing the seeds for doom in the 'normal' future, should they want to return to what was happening a few months ago.

The anti-marketeer would consider the whole shooting match... with all the possible repercussions as positive and desirable! If the market wants online programmes, then close the school down and go online. Or go seasonal. Run those kiddy courses in the summer and ditch the year round schools. Or ditch the lot and go online for everything.... forever. After all, that is the long term, isn't it?

Another thought: what if the world is swept with another virus in two years time (COVID 22)? Do we go through all this pain again?

The anti-marketeer will think of all these possibilities and will produce a workable, flexible solution which accepts reality for what it is and will not try to impose a rigid set of rules onto a chaotic and unstable marketplace.

Sorry... I've gone on at length on a personal hobby-horse of mine. I'll stop there and leave you with a diagram which took a week to construct and is still full of anomalies, but could offer some kind of solution to the lost marketing person of May 2020...

If you want more of my wittering then copy and paste this link.

https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/adrian-liley/the-anti-marketeers-handbook-directors-cut/paperback/product-166jzkq8.html

Then have a long think about buying a book which costs so much.... take a deep breath and buy it.

That's the anti-marketing, marketing pitch over......

Until next time, stay safe, healthy... and optimistic. There is always a solution even in the darkest of hours!