COVID-19 has forced Bose, the consumer electronics brand, to turn to addressable media and livestreaming as a way of maintaining consumer engagement in the light of changing behaviour – and it is developing new “muscle memory” as a result.

Speaking during a recent Brand Innovators webinar, Pat LaCroix, the brand’s director of demand generation, global consumer marketing, explained that as soon as the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak became clear, Bose realised it needed to “change priorities”.

With traditional sponsorship activities around its North American sporting properties no longer possible, a fresh approach has been necessary – one that has seen the emphasis shift from on-field action to online engagement, according to LaCroix.

“Like a lot of things with COVID-19, things were in the process of changing anyway, but that change is accelerating much more greatly,” he pointed out. (For more details, read WARC’s report: Bose accelerates adoption of OTT and livestreaming media.)

“It’s less about what’s going on on the field – the live, experiential piece – [and] it’s more [about] the lifestyle around the game, and what the guys are doing off the field, away from the track, off the court. That’s going to prevail [after live sport returns],” he added.

It’s a trend that sporting teams themselves are tapping into, with clubs like Real Madrid utilising players in new and unexpected ways during lockdown as they seek to keep fans engaged.

LaCroix believes Bose is now developing new “muscle memory” and “habits” in campaign creation and distribution which will re-shape its future approach, not to only communications but also to selling products.

He expects to be doing more OTT “and trying to figure out how to break into streaming and show up more in culture”, while also using social to drive more commerce.

“I don’t imagine we’re going to go back to exactly how it used to be, where things were much more planned and choreographed. There’ll be a balance,” he said.

Sourced from WARC