The national head of marketing launched our bold new “Living with Covid™” brand on the Australian public last week, creating a real buzz with its promise of hope, holidays and a consequence-free reopening of society.
It’s a timely change-up, with the public walking away from our current corporate identity “It’s Not a Race™”. In retrospect the decision to clock off over summer (again) probably wasn’t right for the times and we have to concede the subsequent vaccine “Stroll-Out™” has done real damage to this particular asset.
It must be said other state branches haven’t been contributing to our brand hygiene either, running their own local loyalty programs with their “Zero Covid™” line popular with those who can get hold of what is becoming (thanks again to New South Wales) a very exclusive product.
In this context we have had little choice but to move decisively to create a new look and feel with real talkability, carefully crafted messages and a few choice stats from our preferred trust mark to give ourselves some semblance of gravitas.
“Living with Covid™” ticks all the boxes. It changes the conversation from the doom and gloom of the everyday pandemic, creating a new horizon where we can all be free to pursue our dreams as soon as we hit 70%, or is it 80%? Whatever. What isn’t there to like about freedom?
First the good news: the blokes in the press gallery love it! We are enjoying a real return on effort for offering up something fresh to one of our core stakeholders who were, frankly, losing patience with all the daily repeats of the same earnest health advice. Many of our most loyal customers have never seen the need for restrictions to service anyway, while our corporate sponsors are obviously grateful that we are talking up a return to business, as usual.
As for our competitors, how could you argue against hope? Unless you want to side with those who would turn Australia into a “Gilded Cage™” where you can’t do anything except attend work and school, go to the footy and kick up your heels on a Friday night.
That said, there do seem to be a few issues emerging with our first round of customer research that the Guardian Essential Report conducted last week.
First, there seem to be concerns with the fine print. To put it bluntly it’s hard to find anyone who is prepared to support the “Dying with Covid™” part of “Living with Covid™”.
I recognise this is a brave new brand persona, but even with a moderately successful reopening (and again, we have to accept that past performance may well be a sign of future return), the Doherty projection of possibly 1,500 deaths within six months is emerging as a surprisingly tough sell. The majority of consumers are just not prepared to accept more than a couple of deaths per week, while only 15% would countenance anything like our “next best” scenario.
Frustratingly, women with children appear particularly anti-death, pointing to a broader problem with our new market positioning. This same difficult demographic do not seem prepared to make this an adults-only campaign, with the vast majority demanding that children be included in the targets and given priority access to the jab.
In summary, the problem with our new marketing pitch seems to be that people are struggling to understand how we can deliver on our unique value proposition. There’s no issue with our vision statement, that’s a no-brainer. It’s the next bit that is causing the heartache. I think the technical term is “the detail”.
If we are to execute effectively, we really need the logistics team to step up, with vaccines out the door and into arms, quarantine set in environments where leaks won’t be catastrophic, hospitals ready for the significant surge in the seriously ill, schools properly ventilated, and a public ready to work together to confront the scary and uncomfortable reality of a pandemic that has gone endemic. (Note to self, not a bad sub-brand there).
Thankfully, none of that is the job of the marketing team and we can only trust and pray those in control have got their act together. In the meantime, we recommend a simple change up to our new collateral. Let’s move quickly and decisively to: “A Safe Plan for Living with Covid™”.
• Peter Lewis will be discussing the results of this week’s results with Guardian Australia political editor Katharine Murphy at 1pm Tuesday. Free registration here
