Marketing was a Good Force for Society During and Since COVID-19

MARKETING WAS A GOOD FORCE FOR SOCIETY DURING AND SINCE COVID-19
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Marketing was a Good Force for Society During and Since COVID-19
Introduction
Marketing is one of the most important functions in a business due to its implication for success, value creation, and profitability. Marketing encompasses tools, techniques, and strategies designed to create consumer awareness of the products and services. The main purpose of marketing is to propel business growth, attract and retain customers, and match products to the needs of consumers. A business can also pursue goals like customer satisfaction, experience, and loyalty through marketing. Even though most marketing goals are oriented toward business interests, marketing activities can also benefit or adversely affect society. For example, marketing can drive informed spending to fuel a thriving society on the one hand.
On the other hand, marketing can promote consumerism and other consumer behaviors that undermine sustainability. COVID-19 presents a perfect scenario to assess the benefits and drawbacks of marketing. By supporting business continuity, innovating to offer alternatives, and embracing sustainability, marketing has been a force for good in society during the COVID-19 pandemic as it eased the adverse effects of the pandemic and facilitated a quick recovery.
Boom in E-Commerce and Social Media Marketing
Marketing drives competition, which in turn drives innovation. The ability of marketers to innovate and provide alternative products or alternate delivery methods eased the challenges posed by the pandemic. The COVID-19 period can be regarded as the most technologically innovative. Even though many innovations had existed before the pandemic, most experienced the highest acceptance rate by businesses and consumers during this period. Examples include social media, social media analytics, artificial intelligence, and ecommerce. Today's internet usage comprises social media applications (Holsapple, et al., 2018). The use of social media marketing rose significantly during the pandemic. The rationale is that COVID-19 fundamentally changed consumer behaviors, and firms needed to adjust their communication strategies to revive dwindling businesses. For example, the travel industry witnessed massive cancellations due to fear and uncertainty. Many airlines resorted to social media to respond to user inquiries, relate to clientele, and maintain high levels of brand engagement (Prados-Pena et al., 2022). Many firms experienced positive changes after increasing social media marketing, and many managed to remain afloat.
           Other technologies witnessed similar shifts in usage, including artificial intelligence (AI). Advances in natural language processing have produced smart machines that can read and derive meaning from human language (Israel and Amer, 2022). In marketing, AI is often used to boost sales through such applications as tele-conversations and advanced voice analysis (Guha et al., 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic forced many businesses to accelerate the adoption of AI. Recent survey statistics indicated that 55% of companies accelerated their AI strategy in 2020 due to the pandemic, while another 67% expressed plans to further accelerate the strategy in 2021 (McKendrick, 2021). AI helped many organizations turn COVID-19 challenges into opportunities (Lu et al., 2022). For example, AI boosted automation, which eased labor shortages caused by COVID-19. Such advances were visible even in the service industry, where such technologies as chatbots and service robots in the hotel industry.
The most notable change enforced by COVID-19 was the adoption of e-commerce, as most businesses moved online. As governments restricted movements, shoppers could no longer move freely to stores and other businesses to purchase products. An e-commerce sector previously dominated by e-Bay and Amazon soon flooded with new entrants comprising newly founded e-commerce businesses and previously brick-and-motor firms that shifted their operations to online platforms. COVID-19 forced an e-commerce revolution and accelerated digital transformation (Wani and MohamadAli, 2022). Observers believe that most of these changes will become permanent and persist even after the pandemic (McKinsey and Company, 2020). These technologies have been studied in detail, even though the studies have focused on how novel technologies quickly became a mainstay. Very few have been viewed from a marketing perspective to help understand how such changes benefited society.
All these technological movements were marketers’ efforts to adjust to a new business environment and remain in business. The rationale is that COVID-19 could have shut down entire economies by halting the movement of goods and services. Most importantly, customers were trapped in their homes, meaning they could not make purchases. When marketers opened new channels, society benefited the most as people could access essential goods and services, especially foods and medications. Studies show that online food shopping grew significantly during the pandemic, and businesses introduced deliveries to help keep customers at home (Chang and Meyerhoefer, 2020). Such a move protected the customers by limiting their exposure to the virus. In this case, the marketers solved two problems with one strategy: ensure essential provisions reach the public and businesses remain afloat. Without economic activity, society cannot sustain itself. Considering that shutting down all businesses also meant no employment; marketers can be viewed as the critical cog that kept the economic wheel rolling at a time when everything could have come to a halt.
Direct Fight against COVID-19
Besides helping businesses adapt and improve resilience to support society through the economy, marketers were also at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19. Many businesses globally launched innovative products designed to contribute to the fight, such as protective fabric, lotions, and various equipment used to care for coronavirus patients (Anand, 2020). Even big tech companies whose core business is unrelated to health decided to play their part in the struggle. In the United States, Apple Inc. is labeled one of the many companies helping Americans fight COVID-19. The company procured 20 million masks and donated at least 10 million to healthcare workers (Stebbins and Suneson, 2020). 1.9 million masks were donated to New York, the pandemic's epicenter. The company also designed medical masks to help further boost the American response. Many companies played a similar role without profiteering from the pandemic. The donations, support, aid, and contributions in research and development by such companies were great marketing tools whose primary objective was not to generate revenues but to help society overcome the pandemic.
However, many marketers also sought to exploit the pandemic and profiteer at the expense of society. Many countries experienced companies gouging prices of essential household items, selling them at highly inflated prices. In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) reported receiving thousands of complaints about price gouging since the outbreak started. The complaints majorly involved personal care, hygiene, food, and drink products (Scott, 2020). Such products saw a hike in demand because people needed them to sustain themselves during isolation. People needed to ensure they stocked adequate supplies to last them long enough. Uncertainties surrounding the future availability of such goods resulted in impulsive purchases, to which some marketers responded by hiking prices.
In the United States and other countries, cases of profiteering also involved providers of highly-demanded products, including COVID-19 vaccines. Pfizer caused worldwide protests due to its profiteering practices in the vaccine business. The company doubled its annual revenue between 2020 and 2021 after monopolizing the production of drugs (Shepherd, 2022). Many pharmaceuticals behaved selfishly during this period, as manifested by their unwillingness to share vaccine recipes. To them, the pandemic was an opportunity to be exploited despite the global economy being devastated by the pandemic. Some companies managed to produce vaccines and sell them at lower prices, which was perceived by many societies as a relief from the exploitation by Pfizer and other companies. In this case, marketing was indeed a negative force in society as it contributed to the devastating effects of the pandemic.
Nevertheless, there is a need to appreciate that despite profiteering, marketers in the vaccine and other essential commodities business contributed significantly towards helping people survive during the pandemic. For example, companies like Pfizer invested billions of dollars in research and development to help them avail effective vaccines. Many people relied on these vaccines for their health and well-being. Critics may need to ask themselves what would have happened if these companies were reluctant to invest in the development of vaccines. In such a case, most people who contracted the virus could have faced certain death. Pfizer claimed it had contributed to closing the 15 billion dosage gap for 2022’s global supplies (Shepherd, 2022). Even so, the eye-watering markup on the drug prices was adequate to leave a negative image of the company.
Luckily, more responsible marketers emerged to offer a solution to the problem created by Pfizer and other exploitative firms. For example, Moderna and AstraZeneca produced cheaper jabs, which helped save millions of lives, especially since prohibitive pricing was a key factor for access. Additionally, Moderna decided not to enforce patent protection on the vaccine, and, as a result, South African scientists managed to create a copy of the vaccine to help the African continent gain access. Africa recorded the lowest vaccination rates, possibly due to a lack of access or prohibitive prices. With Moderna’s decision, the situation changed, and Africans started receiving vaccinations. This perfect case of corporate social responsibility made marketing a positive force in society during the pandemic.
The pandemic could have halted the globa...