Ipsos MMA Covid-19 Activation Heat Map & Recovery Solution

Businesses are now entering a window where planning to execute for recovery is critical. This is based on the projected upswing in near-term demand as well as the timing and cost considerations for purchasing media for the remainder of 2020 and 2021 – which will undoubtedly be impacted by the fact that this is an election year.

In speaking with executives across industries, there has been a focus around the timing of when positive changes in consumer demand for non-essential businesses will enable them to take actions to accelerate the recovery.  Using a combination of market signals, advanced analytics and our experience, spanning over 30-years of working with leading brands across industries, we created a COVID-19 Demand Heat Map (attached) and a dynamic, local market response simulator that enable executives to adjust for historical results in these times of crisis.

The Heat Map highlights the impact on the demand curve based upon key variable buckets:

1. People Impact of the virus, shutdowns, workplace closures and unemployment
2. Financial Impact of individual, small and large business stimuli and monetary policy
3. Health Variables, including testing, treatments, vaccines and disease reoccurrence probabilities
4. Media Performance, which considers the demand/costs for the remainder of the year, including the impact of elections

We have projected these variables across 5-periods between now and the end-of-the-year:

1. Slow Period – cases gradually level and begin to decline, stimulus programs in place to stabilize businesses and consumers, some visibility into possible treatments/vaccines
2. Transition Period – cases in decline with intermittent increases on a state-by-state basis, localized re-openings impact as stimulus takes effect, better clarity into treatments/vaccines, targeted window for media investment as demand starts to increase
3. Pick-up and 4. Pre-Holiday Build Period – virus levels lower and/or in decline with sporadic but reduced flare-ups, stimulus in effect and unemployment stabilizing, though still high, improvedvisibility into treatments/vaccines, expectation of unprecedented discounting as businesses sell-off inventories and seek to engage customers
4. Economic Lift Period – improvements across all impact variables, begin to lead to economic recovery

Download COVID 19 Recovery Heat Map PDF >

Finding the optimal balance across commercial drivers (marketing, promotions, salesforce, operations) will be important for both short-term recovery as well as for sustainable long-term brand performance, especially in this environment. With the demand curve projected to begin building this summer and leading into the holiday season, the need to, i) plan, ii) secure media, and iii) set in motion execution plans is short – in fact at this point in most organizations it has already begun.

Timing is even more important now as the COVID-19 situation has forced many advertisers to “push” significant portions of their ad spend to the back-half. This will result in inventory challenges and cost increases in an already expensive media period due to the electoral process. As the year goes on and media inventory becomes scarcer and more expensive, those that are well-informed and act fast will be well positioned, gain Share-of-Voice and build equity, while those who are late to the game will be focused on the optimization of remnant media options.

To help companies work through this on a weekly and local basis, Ipsos MMA has developed an advanced algorithm and technology solution that enables companies to optimize media and marketing investments during each of the five COVID recovery periods outlined above. This innovative approach adjusts media response curves weekly and by state, based on a comprehensive set of people, financial, health and media variables listed above.  Attached is a brief summary of the software tool that enables teams to simulate for different scenarios of the crisis by combining the advanced algorithm with assumptions from your management team. Working together we can plan for the right channels, spend levels, targeting and timing of media in order to optimize against short- and long-term performance.

These additional insights and capabilities will be tremendously useful as we look to the future and our recovery.

Download Covid 19 Rapid Response Planning Information Sheet PDF >

Best,