In response to COVID19, community banks and credit unions have responded swiftly, creating on-the-fly marketing measures to address the multitude of challenges members and customers are facing. From promoting low-rate, financial relief loans to alleviate financial stress, generous refinancing options to lower payments, and pushing out messages reminding of online banking’s benefits in a time of social distancing, the industry is full of examples of financial institutions trying to make the best out of what remains a bad situation.

Beyond the doors of financial institutions, when it comes to marketing you can also see great examples of creative problem solving across many industries. One in particular that caught my eye came from Burger King.

With busy cities turned into virtual ghost towns, billboards touting special offers, that would normally be seen by hundreds of passersby a day, became pretty worthless. Burger King’s solution: reward people for using images of their billboards as their Zoom meeting backgrounds. AKA, the Home of the Billboard campaign.

With so many working from home, Zoom has become the virtual meeting platform of choice. BK’s offer was to reward people for downloading a Burger King billboard image from their Twitter account, and using it as a Zoom background during their virtual meetings. In effect, everyone becomes a “digital” marketer for BK. In return they receive a “Buy One Get One Free” Whopper sandwich coupon.

Recently, I was talking to one credit union marketer who commented that he wished for the days when a small budget was his biggest challenge. Right now, one of the biggest challenges may not be what to say or offer, but simply how to reach people at all when the usual channels are likely not getting the attention they normally would. In the same way the ascension of Zoom created a perfect window for BK, are there other new and surprising avenues for reaching people that maybe you wouldn’t have through of three months ago?  Moving forward, as we think about how to approach marketing in a time of unprecedented challenges and obstacles, creative problem solving is paramount.