This year has been a challenging one. I mean, I write and market great brands and businesses for a living, usually from my sofa. So it’s relative. I’m immensely lucky that my career allows me to do that. But marketing in 2020 has taken on a slightly different hue to usual. It has though, if not taught me things, reinforced a few truths that always ring true. Here are my (and my friends’) takeaways from marketing in a pandemic…

Think outcomes, not outputs

Programming and marketing a literature festival is always fun – but this year became a challenge. At Margate Bookie we didn’t manage the same number of events or to have people together in a room, but did transform lives through power of literature, which is what we’re here for. That purpose drove us to continue producing events and activity to support our community.

It’s all about the human story

Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in the whizzy features or technical details of something you’re promoting. A couple of months after I joined Heritage Open Days, Covid hit and we had to rethink things. It ended up being scaled back from 5500 events to 1800 – potentially a ‘bad’ news story. But it did see volunteers embracing digital for the first time, new and innovative ways of sharing history and heritage. That became the story.

And you’re human too

Alex Zeilinger-Goode says that brands and businesses need to remember this. ‘Don’t be afraid to show your soft side. I’m from a hospitality marketing background and one of my biggest takeaways from this pandemic has been the number of previously ‘untouchable’ restaurant and hotel brands that have come out to say that they’re hurting, and that this has been a really difficult time for them. A lot of the language of the bigger, more high end brands has transformed this year to be much more open and honest, from putting their business leaders out there to do opinion pieces to tone of voice on social media. A little vulnerability goes a long way in an industry where, pre-pandemic, things were becoming very focused on flashy installations and experiences.’

Creativity counts

Without the ability to disseminate The Lord Mayor’s Appeal’s annual Impact Report, we created a bold new design that runs through the pdf report, website and social media, allowing us to share impact through all channels.

Community matters

Pippa Goulden is founder of Pr Set ‘I’ve seen the brands who have nurtured their community (whether its a small one or a big one, online or offline) have really managed to weather the storm of the last 10 months.  Being accessible, present and caring – and real – has helped them get through and helped to create customer loyalty.  I’d say this year more than ever before, people are championing other people – e.gs local high streets working together to attract customers, small brands collaborating to cross promote to each other’s audiences.’ One great example of this is how Burger King have opened up their Instagram pages to other restaurants, helping to boost the hospitality sector.

Tone of voice is key

Eppie Shepherd says that she has noted how ‘brand tone of voice has adapted – we need to be more empathetic, more cautious or even have more of a sense of humour!’ It’s really crucial to know who your audience is and what matters to them. Crafting tone of voice and brand guidelines is my favourite thing to do – but this shows how it’s really important to have flexibility built into it.

Tess Agnew says something similar. ‘Listen to, understand and communicate *with* your audience & community, not just broadcast to it. Their needs, priorities and pain points will have likely changed during the pandemic so it’s important to put yourself in their shoes to understand how your content can provide answers to their questions.’

Flexibility wins

In fact, flexibility is a key theme of the year, with those who are able to be adaptable winning out. Literally PR a literature marketing business, run by Helen Lewis. She says ‘My biggest learnings about marketing during a pandemic were around the need to not get too stuck on a plan – even if lots of work has gone into it – if the timing isn’t right. The word of the year for me in marketing has been PIVOT!’

But witty and erudite Stuart Maconie wrote his love letter to the welfare state long before coronavirus hit the world. The Nanny State Made Me: A Story of Britain and How to Save It sees Maconie tell Britain’s Welfare State story through his own history of growing up as a northern working class boy. He champions building a fairer and more just society that looks beyond profit and loss, and takes care of its fellow citizens.

He visits hospitals and doctors surgeries, and hears how increasing bureaucracy is stopping them care for patients. He goes to old factory towns and learns how life stopped once the doors were shut for the final times. He revisits his old schools, which includes a grammar school, and explores whether they were really a leg up for poorer schools, or just added elitism. And, man after my own heart, he spends time in the library, that bastion of educational and cultural democracy.

When I do those ‘where do you fall on the political spectrum?’ quizzes I come out more left than Lenin. Yet I wasn’t convinced by Maconie, love him though I do. It’s all too easy to romanticise the past, believe that we can return to fairer days. The welfare state needs a big overhaul. He’s right about that. And I like that he comes at this from an ideological point of view – like, let’s just all look out for each other. That’s how we should approach all policy making – from a place of heart and feeling, followed up by the practicalities. If only it was that simple.

We are all struggling. But for people with eating disorders the effect is compounded by both practical considerations and the impact on mental health. It’s anxiety provoking, hugely challenging, and really tough.

For a start, being underweight means that my immune system is supressed, and I am more at risk than healthy individuals. I am angry at myself for being in this situation, and struggling to give myself the compassion that says that this is an illness, and one I am working hard to fight. I’m washing my hands regularly, keeping away from people as much as humanly possible, and doing my best to limit contact with any object outside my house. But the concern is still there.

Like many people with or in recovery from an eating disorder, I have quite a limited diet. There are the foods I feel comfortable with – my ‘safe’ foods – and those I find more challenging – the ‘fear’ foods. I am terrified of going into a supermarket and finding the shelves stripped bear of those safe foods that enable me to get through the day. Whilst I would like to think that I could be more flexible if this situation occurs, really I fear I would use this as an opportunity to cut back even more, unable to face a challenge. We are being told to only shop for essentials. It’s very easy for the anorexic voice to convince me that my food is not an essential, and it would be perfectly justifiable for me to spend months hidden away with only cereal bars to eat.

The supermarket is a daunting place for me at the best of times. With panic buying, lengthy queues, product restrictions and militant frontline workers (who are doing a brilliant job) the anxiety is made worse, and the experience far from easy. One thing that is good is that supermarkets are streamlining their ranges a little, so the anxiety that comes from an overwhelming choice is lessened – as long as that streamlining doesn’t come from removing my ‘safe’ foods.

When in the weight restoration phase of anorexia recovery, individuals need much more to eat than people of a ‘normal’ weight – often thousands of calories. What might look like stock piling is actually only food for a few days. The voice telling me I’m greedy and overeating is exacerbated and amplified, the idea that I shouldn’t be eating so much reinforced in my head.

I have come a long way from the days when only an intense and lengthy gym session or run would allow me to let even a meagre portion of food to pass my lips. But I do still rely on my daily walks, just as much for mental health as to allow my body to move a little. Despite protestations from the public, we are still under a fairly limited lockdown in the UK, and allowed out for daily walks. I worry this freedom will be curtailed as people flout the rules and take advantage of our freedom (is sunbathing and having a picnic in the park really necessary?) and am terrified that I might not be even allowed out for my regular amble around the streets near where I live.

Social distancing, which whilst entirely necessary, isn’t helping. In recent months I have been doing really well at trying to go out for dinner and drinks with friends. Now I am at home, and those challenges ceased. We are having regular video calls and checking in, but it’s just not the same. The great steps I have taken feel like they are being curtailed.

If you’re in treatment and used to seeing a therapist or nurse regularly, all this will have stopped. Most therapists are doing online or phone check ins, so that people have some continuity of contact. But a lot of the benefit that comes from sessions is the in person relationship, some of which is lost online. And monitoring of weight and physical symptoms through blood tests can’t happen, so there is a risk that any deterioration will not be noticed.

Diet culture is all pervasive, even at the best of times. But at the moment there are numerous posts and memes about gaining weight and overeating during lockdown. The idea that this would be the worst thing to befall us doesn’t help with the notion that weight gain is bad and being thin is good, which, whilst not the cause of my anorexia, certainly doesn’t aid in my recovery. Everyone is doing home workouts and bragging about it, and it would be all too easy to fall down a rabbit hole of home exercise videos. That is something I need to steer away from.

Having anorexia at any time really sucks. It’s the biggest killer of any psychiatric illness. It ruins lives. But during a global health pandemic it’s even harder. I know I have to keep fighting, to be healthy and strong during this period, and to come out of it able to keep on going, working on my recovery. Maybe I can use this opportunity to be forced to be more flexible, adapting my meals, challenging myself, and working on what matters to me.

But right now, it all feels a bit much.