ABSTRACT
This chapter explores several contextual (narrow) and intervening (broad) conditions that occurred at the same time as COVID-19 and impacted the strategies that advertising agencies developed to cope with not just one, but several crises. It first provides an overview of the development of corporate social responsibility and, in particular, cause-related marketing, to explain how organizations generally approach crisis communication. The chapter then explores different layers of complexity that influenced the impact of the COVID-19 on crisis response advertising.
These types of conditions include the following: (1) the changing economic pressures that occurred as a result of the pandemic and how brands reacted. It also discusses the actions and expectations of the general public during times of (2) social unrest and (3) political polarization, which occurred at the height of COVID-19 in the United States and influenced brand communication and consumer expectations simultaneously. Several contextual conditions needed to be taken into account as part of brands’ crisis response as well, such as (4) people's health and safety needs, (5) unpredictable changes in consumer behavior, and (6) technological advancements, which facilitated the lockdown but also caused mental health challenges that needed to be dealt with.
