Balancing long-term and short-term objectives during a crisis

As the COVID-19 pandemic stretches into another year, brands are being forced to rethink their short-term strategies to ride out the pandemic and balance plans for long-term growth with the realities of marketing in a fast-moving situation.

According to Mike White, CEO and Founder of creative agency Lively, the phrase ‘adapt and pivot’ is taking on new meaning as a critical building block of long-term strategic planning.

Five principles to balance long-term and short-term objectives

1. Stay calm, but don’t carry on as normal: Faced by the profound changes brought about by COVID-19, existing plans may feel inappropriate for the times.
2. Factor uncertainty into brand planning: Every organisation must bake uncertainty into its planning and keep that approach moving forward, not just during peak pandemic times.
3. Adapt the best short-term tactics for the long term: Broaden focus onto customers and other external audiences to understand how their wants and needs had changed and to identify how to evolve propositions accordingly.
4. Learn to pivot, then make it your strategy: Dial up the parts of the business that allow you to keep doing this despite the changes and challenges brought about by the pandemic.
5. Use the pivot strategy as an engine to grow: To turn all insights and learnings from the pandemic into an engine for future and on-going growth.