For those of us taking precautionary measures against a potentially fatal pandemic plaguing society, we are seemingly left with little to do from the isolation of our own homes. We are fortunate, however, that in this time of distress, we have a few businesses that continue to cater to our needs as humans.
Of course we still have restaurants staying open for take-out, and even more we have company’s like UberEats, Doordash, Postmates, GrubHub, goPuff etc. which allow us to have minimal contact with the outside world. ____ are giving consumers the opportunity to purchase their garments with free delivery allowing them to make sales without any in-store purchase. Even Amazon provides us with the ability to order virtually anything directly to our doors as quickly as possible with their famous 2-day shipping.
There are even some companies that are going the extra mile and providing customers with their services for free. You can get free workouts from Nike, Peloton, Planet Fitness, etc. You can get free classes from Yale, Scholastic, Johns Hopkins, etc. You can get free reading material from Kindle, Audible, Scribd, etc. You can even get a free premium membership on PornHub.
This may seem like a very altruistic benevolent action on behalf of these brands, but companies aren’t doing this without forsaking their own interests. By including these added benefits with their services, these companies are increasing their brand value and building customer loyalty.
Ultimately, if brands like Barry’s Bootcamp and McDonald’s were not giving us free workouts and offering free delivery, we would not be leaving our houses to go out and retrieve those services. Instead of remaining complacent in the given circumstances and accepting a static business trajectory, they are giving us their services with the hope that people will want to keep using their services following the resolution of the pandemic.
People are learning from this repeated pattern of behavior to rely on these services. This is a wonderful example of brands making the most out of this disease — even if they cannot directly make revenue from the current state of the world, they are fostering a good relationship with potential customers who could eventually bring in new revenue or at the very least conditioning consumers to maintain a positive association with the brand’s name.
Calling back to one of my previous posts, these companies are doing a great job at continuing to extend the reach of their brand in time of a crisis while also taking care of their corporate-social responsibility. They are clever in fulfilling a responsibility they have to the community that also serves as a marketing tool for themselves.