Byron Sharp on why the best response to Covid-19 was to stop advertising

The best brand response to Covid-19 was to stop advertising, Byron Sharp has told Campaign in an interview to mark the tenth anniversary of his seminal book How Brands Grow.

Sharp was scathing about brands who sent messages about Covid, arguing it was "embarrassing arrogance" that marketers would think people were interested in what they had to say about the virus.

Instead, he praised Coca-Cola, which paused all UK marketing spend for three months over lockdown. "I think that's a much better thing to do than rushing down to your agency and saying: 'We've got to have a Covid ad'," he said. "Wait, and save your money."

Sharp's 2010 book had a huge impact on adland, reshaping marketing departments and philosophies across the world. It argued that in order to grow, a brand needs to focus primarily on attracting the largest number of customers possible, rather than encouraging existing customers to spend more. This requires broadly targeted, mass market communication, as well as creating a distinctive and memorable brand.

A decade on, Sharp, who is a professor of marketing science and director at the University of South Australia's Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, said he believes that despite societal shifts, an ever-evolving media landscape and the arrival of Covid, the fundamentals of marketing are still the same.

Having likened his marketing proposition to Isaac Newton's law of gravity, arguing they are both scientific principles that do not change, he said that marketers are too distracted by short-term changes and overlook the bigger trends. "Beware of charlatans who always claim that something has fundamentally changed. Consumers are very habitual. They liked their lives before and they want those lives back," he added.

Read the full article in Campaign UK.