Bauer Media assembles pandemic 'tone' consultancy Bauer Adventure
Bauer Media has assembled a pandemic 'tone' consultancy within Bauer Adventure from its content, creative and commercial professionals to help brands decide how to market themselves during the pandemic.
Bauer Media assembles pandemic 'tone' consultancy Bauer Adventure
The ongoing public health crisis and lockdown has rewritten the rulebook on business set-ups, marketing objectives, media channels and even the creative. As marketing budgets tighten across the board, media owners are moving to help remove the friction from buying and advise on tone and appropriate messaging for a locked-down audience.
The agile consultancy has been created in response to industry furloughs, reduced budgets and stymied production capabilities at home. Adventure said Wickes was one of its first clients, with pre-booked spots tailored to encourage at-home DIY projects.
Bauer said the new offering will be available to clients on all projects, no matter the budget or scale of the campaign. The news comes after Channel 4 offered up the services of 4Creative for free to ease TV spend.
Lucy Wheeler, director of Bauer Adventure, said: “It is more critical than ever for brands to use the right messaging and tone in their advertising as consumers become increasingly more judgemental and open to brand switching."
Bauer Adventure is looking to help brands make the most of the adverse situation across its network, which it claims reaches 25m a week in the UK.
A study by the firm said that 85% of listeners expect ads to be non-exploitative – yet 91% have already shifted brands, and 85% would consider doing so after the lockdown. Furthermore, ads addressing Covid-19 garner 15% more attention than those that do not, said the research, gathered from a nationally representative survey of 1,495 people.
In radio specifically, research from UK industry body Radiocentre found that 38% of commercial radio listeners are tuning in for an extra hour and 45 minutes each day. The dissolution of the commute may be hitting earlier listening, but throughout the day, many listeners are logging more hours.
It said that these listeners are now tuning in for an average of 26 hours every week, compared the average time spent listening of around 14 hours a week prior to the health crisis, according to a 1,000 person sample looking to uncover lockdown listening habits.