The coronavirus pandemic has had a significant impact on the economy, business, public opinion, mass sentiment, people's emotional state and their ability to pay. There have been business closures, work stoppages, wage cuts, personnel optimization and downsizing, bankruptcies, and everything that accompanies large-scale crises affecting the entire world.
A substantial part of manufacturing enterprises in the B2B sector were recognized as systemically important and did not stop their work even during the lockdown. Much worse did the enterprises from the sphere of services and sales/distribution, whose fate largely depended on the specific segment of work and clientele. But as a result of the research at this stage, there are rather positive sentiments among communications professionals and an optimistic outlook on the future.
Almost all organizations have encountered some kind of problems in the field of communications. It seems though, that this time the companies’ management began to pin much higher hopes on their PR and marketing communications departments. A significant part of the companies surveyed only had to reduce the budget to varying degrees (60%). Reduction of specialists noted only 17% of respondents (comparatively less than in 2008). At the same time, 10% of companies increased their budget, and 46% of respondents pointed out that the pandemic provided them with new opportunities for communication development and, above all, an unprecedented opportunity to use digital channels for communications - less expensive and more effective in the face of limitations of offline activities.
Only 19% expect the situation to worsen in the next six months, and 13% each fear losing their job or part of their team. Communicators are in constant search of new effective tools that can compensate partially or completely unavailable offline activities today.
For full results of the study, please, contact us: moscow@frc-pr.com.
Figure: 1. Concerns of specialists in marketing communications and PR for the next six months (December 2020 - May 2021)
