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  • Right now, it feels like the world's standing still.

  • Your country needs you to stay on your couch and order in.

  • The world has changed and Vegas is changing with it.

  • As the coronavirus pandemic progresses, companies are searching to find the right tone and message for their marketing.

  • While some industries like travel and retail have cut back their ad spending, many companies are still heavily promoting their products and have pivoted their ad campaigns during the crisis.

  • How are some of the world's most recognizable companies reenvisioning their advertising in the times of a pandemic.

  • Hang out from home for America.

  • The coronavirus pandemic has upended everything and that definitely extends to marketers, all of whom laid out plans for the entire year well ahead of time and most of whom had to tear up those plans.

  • Early on, as the pandemic spread and the world shut down, marketers had to act quickly to make sure their ads were still appropriate. [These ads were meant to be clever. Now they are just tone-deaf.]

  • You had marketers on the air showing people putting fingers in other people's mouths.

  • Mhm, that's so good.

  • That's not right.

  • Crowds of people chasing people around.

  • All kinds of stuff that suddenly totally is wildly inappropriate.

  • So the first thing that marketers did was slam on the brakes.

  • They started pulling things down as quickly as they could.

  • One of the examples was the Mint Mobile ad in which somebody put queso dip in somebody else's mouth, which is kind of horrifying.

  • But that was the joke even in the first place, but it became really quite horrifying in the context of what everybody was suddenly going through.

  • Mint Mobile said they were considering pulling the ad when Twitter users started mocking it.

  • That sped up their decision to quickly remove the spot.

  • So that's just one example of creative that had to be tailored, taken off the air, removed or uprooted as soon as people realized the severity of what was going on.

  • Once the dated ads were pulled, marketers decided they still needed to come out with comforting messages.

  • So they said, "I've gotta stay relevant."

  • "What can we do to stay current and present while locked at home?"

  • And so they figured out ways to make ads from their homes that reflected what their audiences were doing at home.

  • -So all of a sudden you saw an enormous amount of ads showing empty streets, people at home, it became repetitive. -【'In these uncertain times,' coronavirus ads strike some repetitive notes.]

  • For now, we're all living a new normal.

  • We're living in uncertain times.

  • Our spirit is what unites us.

  • Susan Credle and her creative teams at FCB Worldwide advise some of the world's largest brands on their approach to advertising.

  • There's been some cynical, you know, videos out there making fun of the piano music and the hopeful words and the unprecedented times.

  • But I think we have to be honest, we all were jumping into the conversation at the exact same time and so we started similar conversations that first month, month and a half.

  • Now brands are looking for ways to move out of the public service announcement phase.

  • I think that the next thing that we're gonna see is people, I think people want to laugh a little and to lighten up.

  • Now you're seeing brands looking for ways to be less somber and more entertaining.

  • They're seeing marketers reintroduce humor into their ads about the absurdity of life stuck at home with your family or friends or unable to go outside.

  • Cocktail, who's with me?

  • Charlie, cocktail?

  • Bobby, Mark, Zoe, Gabby?

  • You'll see a lot of safety advertising but also a lot of tension in marketing as advertisers try not to overplay that message.

  • A new Vegas for the new reality.

  • WeatherTech features nonporous surfaces that can easily be wiped with germ-killing disinfectants.

  • After leaving our 450-degree ovens, the only hands that touch them are yours.

  • The longer-term outlook for advertisers and the industries that rely on it, like much of the rest of the economy is uncertain.

  • It's been proven out that during a crisis or a recession, the brands and the companies that keep investing and keep their message out there, actually come out of it much stronger.

  • It's very hard to tell how much the ad industry is going to look like the ad industry we knew a year ago, even once we have a vaccine and life gets back to something like normal.

Right now, it feels like the world's standing still.

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