Online, offline, integrated and more: COVID-19 spurs global marketing innovation – News roundup

Legislation from Facebook and advice from Google to inform your marcomms. Plus, from Dyson to Prada, discover the manufacturers stepping up amidst COVID-19 pandemic

Guidance for navigating your campaigns through COVID-19

Google has published guidance for marketers on navigating COVID-19. The one-page document outlines considerations such as:

• Tone
• Imagery/assets
• Adapting
• Google Ads
• Other Google tools which may help

Google doesn't have all the answers, but, even if you only take away one thing from this article, I strongly recommend allocating yourself 10 minutes to read this guidance and just double-check that your COVID-19 marketing plan is in line with advice from the top.

Still working out your company's response to COVID-19? You're not alone. Last week, Dr. Dave Chaffey published a free Smart Insights guide Creating a marketing action plan for a recession, to help inform strategy for marketers and business owners, which is definitely worth a download.

Combatting COVID-19 misinformation on Facebook

2.89 billion customers log into an app owned by Facebook every month (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp). That's a lot of power, especially at a time where so many are relying on online news and social sharing to inform their lifestyle during the pandemic.

Accordingly, the social media powerhouse recently released a statement about combatting misinformation:

"Since January, we’ve applied this policy to misinformation about COVID-19 to remove posts that make false claims about cures, treatments, the availability of essential services or the location and severity of the outbreak.

"We regularly update the claims that we remove based on guidance from the WHO and other health authorities. For example, we recently started removing claims that physical distancing doesn’t help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

"We’ve also banned ads and commerce listings that imply a product guarantees a cure or prevents people from contracting COVID-19."

This release strikes a strict tone against misinformation that will resonate with all of us. If applied more widely, the implications for news, brands, research, and politics could be huge. So what does that mean for your social media plan? For now - not very much.

Moreover, these questions about managing information on social platforms are not going to go away any time soon. Make sure your social media marketing is up to scratch with our dedicated social media marketing audit template.

Dyson joins manufacturers worldwide in pandemic action plan

British engineering giant, Dyson, has committed to manufacturing 15,000 ventilators - including 10,000 ordered by the NHS and a further 5,000 which Sir James Dyson will donate to the UK and other countries in need.

In an email to staff at Dyson, seen by the Financial Times, Sir Dyson explained:

“This new device can be manufactured quickly, efficiently and at volume. It is designed to address the specific clinical needs of Covid-19 patients, and it is suited to a variety of clinical settings.

“The core challenge was how to design and deliver a new, sophisticated medical product in volume and in an extremely short space of time. The race is now on to get it into production.”

Drawing on what they know best, all CoVents will feature Dyson-standard digital motors. Dyson is one of many manufacturing firms involved in the National Effort for Coronavirus, including Babcock and Ventilator Challenge UK.

These ventilators are a much-needed resource to help the NHS provide for the critically ill over the coming weeks/months - which must first be celebrated. In doing so, Dyson, Babcock and Ventilator Challenge UK join worldwide manufacturers who have turned their trade from business as usual to pandemic-specific production.

And it's not just ventilators, over the last week we've seen face masks and other protective fabrics by Louis Vuitton, Prada, Zara and Costello, and hand sanitizers by Pernod Ricard and Brewdog.

Once again, it's the brands and companies which react quickly to changing marketing environments who can offer (life-saving) customer value, retain workers' jobs, and cover their operating costs during an economic downturn. All that alongside staring in the good news headlines we all crave, which will not be forgotten once we're back on the high street.