How to prepare your company for what's coming
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2025 10:14 am
2020 was a year unlike any other. A pandemic that upended daily life and routines. Global economic disruption, universal uncertainty about exactly what comes next. We’re all traveling through truly uncharted territory.
In business and marketing, it’s not that the core challenge has changed: deciding on the investments and steps needed to prepare your company to take action on its product, channel, or consumer strategy remains essential.
Instead, it's the traditional idea of what it means to be prepared for what comes next — including the familiar playbooks and tried-and-true approaches that so many companies relied on in the past — that became obsolete in just a few months.
"In the last six months alone, we've probably experienced a 10-year change."
The good news is that the twin challenges of profound disruption and uncertainty also present businesses with an opportunity to rethink preparedness.
Reimagine how to best meet consumer demand, vp financial email database even when it fluctuates, and even if it remains volatile.
Today, businesses have more consumer data and signals, are better able to act on them, and can be held to a higher standard for doing all of this more responsibly than ever before.
Leveraging these advantages can do more than help you find and capture growth by meeting the demands of the moment. It can also give you a significant business advantage and help equip your business with the agility and resilience needed to be ready for whatever comes next.
But how do we know this?
Because many of the most disruptive trends facing businesses today—such as keeping up with rapidly changing consumer demand; creating and maintaining reliable supply and delivery chains; and making sound business decisions quickly enough to keep up with the competition—are nothing new.
In 2020, the pace of these and other prevailing trends accelerated so much that, in the past six months alone, we have likely experienced a 10-year shift.
In this short time, we have seen companies embrace digital transformation and thrive.
What do we mean by digital transformation?
It's not just about building a better eCommerce site (as important as that is).
It's about using data and technology to improve your product and channel capabilities.
Here are some examples that support the case for digital transformation:
Let data inform your new product strategy
After learning that nearly all domestic and international flights would likely be grounded for months, airlines were forced to cut their losses and look for new growth models.
A team at a major US airline used aggregated flight demand data from Google to identify routes with low click-through rates and high search demand.
They then used those information signals, in combination with proprietary data, to prioritize reopening some routes over others. Today, the airline has a new product strategy.
Alleviate uncertainty in your channel strategy
When the pandemic upended the entertainment industry, traditional distribution strategies no longer applied. Studios were faced with a choice.
Should new movies be released directly to streaming services? In theaters with existing demand? Or both? Google helped a major movie studio analyze search interest for a new movie at the zip code level to determine if and where there was demand for a theatrical release.
A similar approach can and is already being used to optimize retail and QSR marketing and distribution strategies .
Meeting dynamic consumer demand
As millions of new at-home consumers accelerated the shift from offline to online transactions, CPG brands faced an urgent need to expand their retail and digital partnerships to develop a compelling online presence and offering.
In a program tested in Italy, Google used signals and data to help brand advertisers drive and measure lower-funnel performance and shift some offline marketing activities and budgets to digital.
In business and marketing, it’s not that the core challenge has changed: deciding on the investments and steps needed to prepare your company to take action on its product, channel, or consumer strategy remains essential.
Instead, it's the traditional idea of what it means to be prepared for what comes next — including the familiar playbooks and tried-and-true approaches that so many companies relied on in the past — that became obsolete in just a few months.
"In the last six months alone, we've probably experienced a 10-year change."
The good news is that the twin challenges of profound disruption and uncertainty also present businesses with an opportunity to rethink preparedness.
Reimagine how to best meet consumer demand, vp financial email database even when it fluctuates, and even if it remains volatile.
Today, businesses have more consumer data and signals, are better able to act on them, and can be held to a higher standard for doing all of this more responsibly than ever before.
Leveraging these advantages can do more than help you find and capture growth by meeting the demands of the moment. It can also give you a significant business advantage and help equip your business with the agility and resilience needed to be ready for whatever comes next.
But how do we know this?
Because many of the most disruptive trends facing businesses today—such as keeping up with rapidly changing consumer demand; creating and maintaining reliable supply and delivery chains; and making sound business decisions quickly enough to keep up with the competition—are nothing new.
In 2020, the pace of these and other prevailing trends accelerated so much that, in the past six months alone, we have likely experienced a 10-year shift.
In this short time, we have seen companies embrace digital transformation and thrive.
What do we mean by digital transformation?
It's not just about building a better eCommerce site (as important as that is).
It's about using data and technology to improve your product and channel capabilities.
Here are some examples that support the case for digital transformation:
Let data inform your new product strategy
After learning that nearly all domestic and international flights would likely be grounded for months, airlines were forced to cut their losses and look for new growth models.
A team at a major US airline used aggregated flight demand data from Google to identify routes with low click-through rates and high search demand.
They then used those information signals, in combination with proprietary data, to prioritize reopening some routes over others. Today, the airline has a new product strategy.
Alleviate uncertainty in your channel strategy
When the pandemic upended the entertainment industry, traditional distribution strategies no longer applied. Studios were faced with a choice.
Should new movies be released directly to streaming services? In theaters with existing demand? Or both? Google helped a major movie studio analyze search interest for a new movie at the zip code level to determine if and where there was demand for a theatrical release.
A similar approach can and is already being used to optimize retail and QSR marketing and distribution strategies .
Meeting dynamic consumer demand
As millions of new at-home consumers accelerated the shift from offline to online transactions, CPG brands faced an urgent need to expand their retail and digital partnerships to develop a compelling online presence and offering.
In a program tested in Italy, Google used signals and data to help brand advertisers drive and measure lower-funnel performance and shift some offline marketing activities and budgets to digital.