Marketing activities in 2020: COVID-washing

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If you can talk about marketing and brand activities in 2020 without mentioning the pandemic and environmental and social issues, then probably not much would have been said. Clothing brands suddenly changed their collections from elegant to sweatpants and comfort, adding masks to the offer (e.g. Reserved), real-time marketing time and again, especially in the first half of the year, crashed into the topics of coronavirus and the reorganization of everyday life because of it, campaigns and commercials focused more on the social aspect (e.g. Heineken and the Connections campaign) , and so on, and so forth. Quite a lot has happened and it will be difficult to include all the most important events for marketing in one article, so I will focus on new and significant phenomena.

Contents
COVID-washing worse than the pandemic itself?
Fear Marketing and Compulsive Shopping
Phew, time for some good news!
The greenest event of 2020
Off topic
COVID-washing worse than the pandemic itself?
Let's start with COVID-washing. There was already greenwashing , so this year COVID-washing naturally joined in, one of the most unethical brand moves of the previous year. In short - greenwashing consists of telling us that certain products come from sustainable production, when they have little to do with it. Analogous COVID-washing concerns marketing activities assuring us that a given service or product protects us or, oh horror!, cures coronavirus infection . Here we can mention perfidiously false declarations of antiviral action or simply all the moves using slogans referring to strengthening immunity. Oregano oil, all the supplements that Poles love, medicinal antibacterial gels - each of us has come across advertising messages for such products at least once. And their prices. Adding a mention that any of the listed items may have a beneficial effect on immunity ruthlessly increased the price. The mere presence of vitamin C acted as a trigger for people - vitamin C strengthens immunity, so we jumped at anything that contained it. In this way, the orange juice market saw a 46% increase in sales. Yes, we believed that a beverage would protect us from the pandemic. Bizarre examples of COVID-washing were brands releasing materials with antiviral properties - mattresses, bedding and pillowcases that were supposed to eliminate 99% of the coronavirus in 60 minutes or jeans resistant to its movement. I feel embarrassed when I write that we believed in such things. And we probably still do.

Shopping in times of pandemic
Fear Marketing and Compulsive Shopping
All of this was accompanied by fear marketing, also known as Dracula marketing . It is brilliantly easy to make money on people's phobias and fears. We are terrified of old age, so anything that would distract us from it easily ends up in the basket. We are afraid of boredom and loneliness, so we pay quite willingly for anything that would provide us with venezuela telemarketing data entertainment. And in 2020, we were most afraid for our health. Heck! We were terrified. That is why we were so easily drawn into all the miracle pills and miracles on a stick. Emotions are an inseparable part of the decision-making and purchasing process, but so far we have usually associated them with excitement and pleasure. This year we learned what it means to buy out of fear.

At the same time, we all experienced compulsive shopping , which couriers, online sellers, and even memes will talk a lot about (who can't identify with the jokes about all those things that we didn't really need, but bought online between refreshing Instagram and TikTok?). Was it just about the fact that we moved our shopping processes online? Well, not really. I'm no psychologist, psychiatrist, or psychotherapist, but compulsive behaviors are a common phenomenon in stressful situations, especially long-term ones. And that's exactly what we found ourselves in and stayed in for months. You know the phenomenon of compulsive overeating or other behaviors. As a consumer society, deriving joy and satisfaction from possessions, it was easiest for us to find apparent relief in shopping. Once I write my doctoral thesis on this, I'll confirm my theory.

Besides, for weeks the only exciting behavior we could afford was meeting the delivery guy at the door.

Coronavirus and consumerism
Phew, time for some good news!
Greenwashing has fortunately given way to real green marketing . And quite a lot has happened in this matter in 2020! Biedronka has taken real action towards animal welfare. It said "enough!" to eggs from cages and did not throw words to the wind - from January in Warsaw, we will not be able to buy triple eggs in the popular grocery discount store. IKEA did not disappoint either, declaring that by 2025 it will change its menu so that half of its iconic menu will consist of plant-based items, and only 25% will contain red meat . 2020 also treated us to the Too Good to Go application - its task is to fight against common food waste. It connects ordinary bread eaters with places where you can buy or pick up for free products that may unnecessarily end up in the trash. Auchan entered this initiative in great style and allowed you to order packages of food with a short expiry date at lower prices. In Poland, WoshWosh also made us take our hats off after another edition of their campaign collected 9,000 pairs of shoes and gave them to the homeless in our country.

The clothing industry, which is personified as the source of most environmental problems, has also been working on itself quite well, despite the pandemic. Even H&M , which has been getting hammered for a long time, has led by example. There was a machine for remaking old clothes into new ones, a rental service for clothes from previous collections, and finally they came out with the Singular Society service . Thanks to it, you can buy only 5 products from the entire brand's range - this is intended to help customers make informed decisions. A big plus for the fact that the prices will be equal to the cost of production. Gucci came up with the idea that for every piece of clothing that gets a second life, you will be able to plant a tree. Shortly before them, Levi's started buying back old clothes of its brand and after renovation, re-selling them. If huge fashion houses and brands agree to be second-hand stores, it is very much out of style in 2020.

Green marketing
The greenest event of 2020
Żabka has also become famous this year for something other than being on every corner. Namely, this popular chain has created the first store powered 100% by renewable energy sources ! And it's absolutely awesome! The floor recovers energy, photovoltaic panels and quantum dots have been installed on the roof, the refrigerators only open where the product we want to take out is, there is a rainwater tank, you can return PET bottles and charge your phone using energy from a solar lamp. These are just a few innovations, because there are 20 of them in the entire store . A lot could have happened in 2020, but I didn't expect so much good in one place.

Environmental protection
Off topic
I'll make a small off-topic throw in at the end, which gives a bit of encouragement and is touching - Burger King supported other brands, even McDonald's, openly appealing to order from this chain . One of the actions was sharing profiles of restaurants on its Instagram story that fought for customers (and survival!) during the pandemic. In September, it added posters of Ronald McDonald and Burger King kissing. This was while supporting LGBT+ communities.