How to Advertise During COVID-19: Lessons That Still Apply Today

By Livy Phillips | American Guerrilla Marketing

The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped advertising in ways that are still playing out today. Brands that went dark during the shutdown lost ground they never fully recovered. Brands that stayed present, adapted their message, and found new ways to reach their audience came out stronger. The decisions made during that period taught the advertising world lessons that apply to any market disruption, more than a pandemic.

We worked with clients throughout the pandemic to keep their campaigns running in whatever format made sense for the conditions. This guide covers what we learned and what those lessons mean for advertising strategy in any challenging environment.

Why Brands Kept Advertising During COVID-19

The instinct during a crisis is to cut spending and go quiet. That instinct is understandable. It is also usually wrong. Research from multiple economic downturns going back to the 1980s shows consistently that brands that maintain advertising during difficult periods outperform their category peers during the recovery and sustain that advantage for years afterward.

The logic is not complicated. When competitors go quiet, advertising spend becomes more efficient. You have less noise to compete against. Your message lands more clearly. And you maintain the brand awareness that will drive purchase consideration when conditions improve.

Consumer psychology also matters here. People noticed which brands stayed with them during difficult times. The brands that showed up with relevant, helpful, or honest messaging built trust. The brands that simply disappeared were not thought of as responsible or careful. They were forgotten.

What Changed About Advertising During the Pandemic

COVID-19 did not end advertising. It changed the conditions under which advertising happened. Understanding those changes helps explain why some formats and messages worked while others failed.

Foot Traffic Dropped Sharply

In major cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, foot traffic fell dramatically in the spring and summer of 2020. Streets that were normally packed with commuters, tourists, and daily walkers became quiet. Outdoor advertising formats that depended on high-volume pedestrian traffic saw their effective reach decline.

But foot traffic did not go to zero. Essential workers, local residents, and people who simply could not work from home continued to move through cities. And as restrictions eased, foot traffic came back faster than most forecasters predicted. In neighborhoods like Williamsburg in Brooklyn and Silver Lake in Los Angeles, the return was visible on the street within weeks of restrictions lifting.

Screen Time Increased Dramatically

Working from home meant spending more time in front of screens. Social media use increased. Streaming hours grew. Digital advertising inventory became more available and, initially, less competitive. Brands with flexible advertising budgets shifted spend toward digital channels to follow the audience.

Consumer Priorities Shifted

The products and services people needed changed. Messaging that felt tone-deaf to the situation generated backlash. Brands that acknowledged the moment and adapted their tone built credibility. The old playbook of simply communicating product features and benefits needed to be updated for a context where people were scared, anxious, and genuinely uncertain about the future.

Advertising Strategies That Worked During COVID-19

The brands that navigated pandemic-era advertising well followed a recognizable set of principles. Here are the strategies that consistently produced results.

Messaging That Resonated and Messaging That Missed

The tone of pandemic-era advertising mattered enormously. Brands got it right and they got it wrong, sometimes in the same campaign.

What Resonated

Honesty worked. Brands that acknowledged the situation directly and communicated clearly about what they were doing and why built credibility. Brands that thanked essential workers and communities came across as human. Brands that offered genuine help, free products for healthcare workers, reduced fees, flexible cancellation policies, created lasting positive associations.

Local messaging worked. In a period when global supply chains were failing and big institutions were overwhelmed, local businesses and local identity resonated. Brands that spoke to their specific community rather than to a national audience stood out.

What Missed

Forced optimism failed. Ads that used the pandemic as a backdrop for brand messaging, with swelling music and images of people persevering, while making no real acknowledgment of the difficulty or offering no genuine value, came across as exploitative. Audiences noticed and they talked about it.

Business as usual failed. Brands that continued running pre-pandemic campaigns that made no reference to the changed context felt disconnected from reality. A luxury travel brand continuing to show people crowded onto planes as if nothing had happened sent a jarring message.

The Right Tone Is Not Complicated
Ask what your audience is actually going through right now. Then ask what your brand can honestly offer in that context. If the answer is genuine help or genuine connection, lead with that. If it is not, be quiet until you find something real to say.

Out-of-Home Advertising During and After the Pandemic

Out-of-home advertising faced unique challenges during the height of the pandemic. But those challenges revealed important things about how the format performs and where its resilience comes from.

The format held up better than expected in essential corridors. Grocery store areas, pharmacy neighborhoods, residential blocks, and transit routes used by essential workers all maintained meaningful foot traffic. Brands that adapted their outdoor campaign route plans to focus on these high-persistence corridors maintained effective reach even during the period of lowest overall foot traffic.

As cities reopened, outdoor advertising returned faster than most digital-first marketers anticipated. People were hungry for physical experience after months indoors. Foot traffic returned to most major urban corridors at high levels within a year of the initial lockdowns. The brands that had maintained outdoor advertising through the difficult period were already positioned when the audience came back.

Outdoor Advertising Formats That Held Up

Not all outdoor formats performed equally during the pandemic. Formats concentrated near essential services and residential neighborhoods outperformed those dependent on commuter traffic. Neighborhood-level postering maintained meaningful reach throughout because people still lived in their neighborhoods and walked to local shops, parks, and restaurants.

Larger formats near major transit hubs saw the sharpest decline in effectiveness during the height of the lockdown and the fastest recovery as cities reopened. If you were flexible enough to shift between these formats based on current traffic patterns, you maintained effective outdoor coverage throughout the period.

Lessons From COVID-19 That Apply to Any Market Disruption

The pandemic was extreme, but the advertising lessons it taught are not specific to pandemics. They apply to any significant market disruption: economic downturns, industry crises, competitive upheavals, or consumer behavior shifts.

Stay Present but Stay Relevant

Advertising through disruption is not about continuing unchanged. It is about continuing with a message that fits the moment. The brands that failed in 2020 often either stopped entirely or kept running campaigns that no longer made sense. The brands that succeeded found the version of their message that was relevant to what their audience was experiencing.

Know Where Your Audience Actually Is

Disruption reshuffles audience location and attention. During COVID-19, people moved indoors, onto screens, and into local neighborhoods. Effective advertisers moved with them. Track where your audience is spending time. Adjust your media plan to follow them, not to maintain the schedule you built before conditions changed.

Authenticity Compounds

Brands that were genuinely helpful or genuinely honest during the pandemic period built lasting loyalty that outlasted the crisis. Authenticity is not a tactic. It is a long-term business asset. The goodwill generated by doing the right thing during a difficult moment pays dividends for years in the form of consumer trust and brand preference.

Never Go Completely Dark

Some reduction in advertising spend during a crisis is appropriate. But going completely dark is almost never the right call. Maintain some presence. It can be minimal. A small postering campaign, a consistent social presence, a regular email. Something that keeps the brand in front of the audience. When conditions improve, you are already there. You do not have to fight your way back to awareness from zero.

The Cost of Going Dark
Every major economic downturn since the 1920s has produced the same result: brands that kept advertising during difficult periods outperformed those that cut spend. Rebuilding brand awareness after going dark costs more than maintaining it through the difficult period.

What a Pandemic-Era Advertising Budget Looks Like

Budget adjustments during disruption are sensible. Wholesale elimination is not. Here is how we advised clients to think about their advertising budgets during the COVID-19 period.

The Return to Physical Advertising

As restrictions lifted and cities reopened, the return to physical advertising was faster and stronger than most marketers expected. People who had been confined indoors for months were hungry for physical experience. Outdoor events filled up. Restaurants had lines. Foot traffic surged.

Brands that had maintained their outdoor advertising infrastructure through the difficult period were ready. They had existing relationships with placement networks, ongoing creative assets, and a clear plan for amplifying when conditions allowed. Brands that had paused everything had to rebuild from scratch while their competitors were already running full campaigns.

The lesson is not complicated. Physical advertising formats are resilient. They come back with the city. The brands that stay in physical advertising through difficult periods capture the recovery premium.

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