Marketing strategies in response to tough times – lessons from India during a global crisis

The purpose of the study is, in the first part, to identify and categorize the various guidelines recommended in the extant literature on adapting marketing strategies to handle the challenges posed by economic and other sustained environmental crises across markets. These strategies and initiatives have then been organized into themes. In the second part, the study aims to use these themes as a backdrop to examine the marketing strategies and innovations that marketers in India have used to cope with the disruptions caused by the Corona virus pandemic. The learnings from this research will be a distilled set of recommendations that organizations, especially those operating in emerging markets, could consider in the future in response to such challenging times. This study contributes to the extant literature by highlighting the marketing strategies and tactics adopted by organizations during various recessionary times, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. It underscores the importance of marketing strategies in managing crises. It points to select innovative strategies that marketers can pursue to deal with the challenges posed by future economic downturns and support their survival. These strategies will help them protect their brand value and market positioning while maintaining their relationship with customers. Besides, since the study has adopted a broad perspective in analysing the strategies, these marketing tactics can be applied by a wide range of industries such as hospitality, tourism, fast-moving consumer durables, e-commerce, etc. The themes indicate that, by and large, the response of firms to the current pandemic is in line with the marketing strategies adopted during previous environmental disruptions, as substantiated by various examples.