Author(s): Ram Kishen Yelamanchili, Karthik Rajagopal, Aparna Jain and Bharati Wukadada
The onset of Covid-19 resulted in widespread panic and distress among the people, which pushed businesses to change their marketing and communication strategies. Various brands launched socially responsible marketing campaigns aimed at supporting the communities affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The existing studies on this subject conclude that adding a humanitarian layer to the communication strategy for brands will strengthen the brands and build loyalty. More importantly, this will also convince consumers to purchase during this uncertain phase. Cause-related campaigns have shown a significant impact on consumer’s buying decisions in the past. This research study attempts to understand how effective these campaigns were in persuading consumers to switch brands and identifies three groups of consumers based on the factors that triggered a brand switch. For an in-depth understanding brands, the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector was chosen for this research study. A structured questionnaire was administered to individual respondents in Mumbai city, to understand their attitude towards four various social marketing campaigns, each representing a product category. The results of the analysis revealed that consumers were open to switching brands due to these marketing campaigns. Moreover, these campaigns also impacted the repurchasing behavior among consumers. It was also found that a brand-NPO(Not for Profit Organizations) partnership had a significant impact on influencing consumers to switch brands.