Brands need to communicate more – not less – with Chinese consumers during the coronavirus outbreak
As the coronavirus continues to impact the world, brands need to approach Chinese consumers with emotional intelligence, rather than going quiet, argues Richard Chapman.
In light of the devastation caused by the bushfires and the recent outbreak of coronavirus, many brands and marketers are remaining silent or putting their communications on hold for fear of saying the wrong thing or being perceived to be behaving opportunistically.
Brands need to ensure their moral compasses are pointing in the direction of empathy and understanding.
The coronavirus demands a level of emotional intelligence and empathy from brands
As the coronavirus continues to dominate global headlines and more people fall ill, we need to understand the way the Australian Chinese community is feeling and be sympathetic to the impact the outbreak of coronavirus has had, not just on them personally, but, importantly, on their families back home.
Richard could you please clarify ‘Chinese ancestry’.How many generations back does that include?
Worse than ignoring it is to be seen to be exploiting the crisis. I’d be very, very cautious about gratuitous empathy; a black border to anything or everything is not the way to go.
Just watch and see, it’s evolving very quickly; what may appear the right message today may be disaster by Friday.
Oh my. For the record. 160,000 odd Chinese students – little bit less than 800k. Tourists represent about half of the “visitor” numbers to Australia of 1.4m.
Chinese attitude is to bunker down. They will see your positive push campaigns as insensitive.
The bounce back will be strong but marketers should be cautious in their approach…perhaps ensuring the advice they receive is credible.