The post-pandemic wave in the marcomm industry

According to statista.com, the marketing and advertising sectors have always been fueling one another. Market analyses show that the global advertising industry is on the rise and projected to grow by 5.9 percent in 2021.

By Romanita Oprea

Tereza Tranakas, Oxygen Hortensia Nastase, Lowe Group Roxana Sava, Pastel

Marketing and advertising research expert A. Guttmann, working for Statista, wrote that the global advertising market experienced some fairly turbulent times between 2000 and 2010, seeing growth rates as high as 11.4 percent as well as lows reaching -9.7 percent during that period. However, since 2011 the situation has stabilised, and advertising spending growth remained on average at roughly five percent. But 2020 brought the coronavirus outbreak and with it a significant drop in ad spend, again surpassing nine percent. According to projections, by 2022 the industry will see expenditure growth return to around 4.8 percent and is forecast to round up to nearly USD 650 billion in 2021.

“Not surprisingly, the internet will be the largest advertising medium in 2022, accounting for a little over 54 percent of global ad expenditures that year. Television, which has been the undisputed favourite among advertisers, will be overtaken by digital media. Between 2020 and 2022, TV is forecast to gain only around USD 2.6 billion, while mobile internet is expected to gain USD 48 billion in the same period. Most of major media are projected to see small gains in investments during the measured period, while newspapers and magazines are projected to lose 2.3 billion each,” Guttmann said.

But how has the Romanian marcomm industry been impacted by the pandemic? According to Talida Cristea, chief operating officer at Kubis, we are living through a couple of the most difficult and uncertain years of our recent history – economically, socially, individually. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic is having an impact on every part of our lives, from the places we can go to the way we spend our time, the priorities we set, and how we manage our money. We all have heard that we are progressing into a world that will never be the same again, which can mean so many things for both businesses and people. And, of course, this has wide-ranging ramifications for the marcomm industry as well.

In the beginning, we had to deal with an unprecedented crisis which required a completely different approach to communication. Consumer behaviour had the most significant shift and there was a realisation that the pandemic had accelerated years of digital advancement into a few months, which meant that marketing budgets had pivoted to online communication. Before, digital was seen as an option; now it is at the heart of each interaction we have, and this will never change. Still, digital was not the winner of the pandemic as it was perhaps portrayed. Compared to 2019, the digital market value in 2020 went up by only 9.2 percent, which shows just an average, consistent growth. In order to remain relevant, companies needed to do more than simply adapt their business-

es. As a result, we’ve witnessed a leap from words to actions, active commitment, and involvement,” said Talida Cristea.

In turn, Irina Pencea, partner at Jazz, believes we all suddenly faced a test of resilience and adaptability. Some of us were better equipped for it in terms of teams, client portfolios, technical solutions or cashflow, while some were less prepared. But we all faced the same challenges of entire agencies working from home, adapting our clients’ campaigns to the new needs overnight, mindset and topics of people, pitching via videocalls, and not seeing each other for many months yet finding ways to continue the creative collaboration that we all depended on.

“We all have Zoom fatigue and we are eager for a holiday in the sun. We are all longing for parties and get-togethers. Some of us are looking forward to finally meeting new colleagues – whom they have only seen on a square on their computer screens – in person. But I think that we should stop and celebrate our huge achievement as an industry, our luck that as a creative industry we were better at finding lateral solutions to problems, since this is part of our day-to-day job,” Irina Pencea added.

“The most vital change has been in our relationships to each other, the relationships between the essential forces – employer – talent – clients – workplace – industry – will never be the same again. We had two essential realisations: that we can also be productive while working from the back garden and that we are social animals, in desperate need of other people’s energy, inspiration, vibe. Hence, two essential concepts have emerged as shapers of the marcom industry’s future: flexibility and organisational culture,” said Hortensia Nastase, Vice-president for Creative Services at Lowe Group.

After all, the impact on the marcomm industry has reflected the impact on the business environment in general. And it was hard: budgets were cut, jobs were lost, office spaces shrank from one day to another, and adjusting to the new reality was quite an effort.

“It feels like clients are going through a similar rapid learning process. What we’ve noticed is that many of them are still cautious, less willing to take risks and think long-term, going for safer, more tactical approaches. It is only natural as long as things are so volatile and difficult to anticipate,” said Roxana Sava, group creative director at Pastel. In Tereza Tranakas’s opinion, it’s obvious that the industry as a whole experienced a drop last year both locally and globally, but it's on a good path to recovery. “Numbers are starting to look better, business is picking up as brands are looking to make up for lost time and sales. However, what is harder to recover

is people’s mental health – the psychological toll of the pandemic. Fatigue, burnout, depression – employees as well as marcomm professionals are feeling them. We have to consider sustainable growth structures moving forward, as well as environments where people can develop in healthy ways,” said Oxygen’s founder & CEO.

Luckily, according to Tranakas, Romania is seeing a more rapid recovery compared to other more developed countries. For the marcomm industry, it will likely take a couple more years for things to become stable – which anyway is a more rapid recovery compared to the 2008 economic crisis.

For those who have seized the opportunity for reinvention, Irina Pencea would say that the impact is reflected in a new way of doing business, which will last until the next reinvention. The true impact lies in the lessons we’ve learned about our expanded capabilities, our newly discovered talents, and our reinforced trust in each other as we went through the challenge together. “Markets will recover or they will reinvent themselves. Communication will play its role in inspiring and stimulating people to explore new possibilities. At many levels of the market there is already a lot of effervescence and revived energy to move ahead in new territories. And for an exploring spirit such as mine, this is the ideal environment,” said Irina Pencea.

Roxana Sava believes that the impact of the pandemic will permanently change the industry. She doesn’t think that we’ll ever go back to “the way things were.” Many changes are here to stay, such as hybrid work (from

the office and from home), online presentations, digital-first thinking, addressing each niche target with personalised messages. All the tools and coping mechanisms that we’ve become experts in will remain in our lives.

“Our hunger for human contact will probably lead to big-scale events again. We are already witnessing them or taking part in them, remembering what they feel like and trying to design them in a way that is as safe as possible – another requirement that we will keep seeing in our briefs,” Sava added.

Her opinion is shared by Talida Cristea, who thinks that we are living in a new reality and we have to go with the flow and adapt. Covid-19 has changed most of the rules: it has accelerated the shift to digital channels; we have been working from home for 16 months, and now we will migrate to hybrid work. Vaccinations will ease social interactions and will help us get back a part of our previous lifestyle, but the impact has been so deep and widespread that we will feel it for many years to come.