Examining the change in brands’ marketing communication during COVID-19 from crisis communication perspective

This research investigates how companies modified their communication strategies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, viewed as an exogenously driven crisis from a marketing perspective. Although the literature on crisis communication in marketing predominantly focuses on internally driven crisis, exogenously driven crises are yet to be investigated further. Based on situational crisis communication theory (SCCT), we first examine how marketing professionals constructed suitable marketing communication strategies during the pandemic by conducting interviews and employing thematic analysis on the collected data. Then, we analyze social media messages of certain brands to compare the discourse and emotional variation over three periods: before, during, and after the pandemic. The interviews reveal seven key topics: the benefits of the COVID-19 pandemic, the societal benefits, the importance of circumspect and peaceful communication, the precautions related to COVID-19, consumer orientation, the suspension of marketing campaigns, and the need to diversify communication channels. Social media analysis shows that while online transactions are featured, marketing-related campaigns lost their relative importance during the pandemic. Furthermore, discrepancies exist between the desired strategies identified in interviews and the implementations reflected in the social media posts. Moreover, we discuss that the construction of crisis communication cannot exclusively rely on organizational reputation and crisis responsibility, as posited by the SCCT. In addition to those, the temporal dimension, contextual changes, and emotional variation should be considered, especially in the context of a prolonged external crisis impacting multiple societal actors.