Act of kindness: A study on modern day crisis handling and its effect on brand identity

Sammanfattning: Purpose: This paper aims to explore and examine how companies have reacted to suddenly occurring crises in the 21st century. The paper will investigate how companies have adapted – or stayed in hiding – during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how this has impacted their corporate brand identity and their core values. The paper will introduce a new framework to be used for assessing the strategic approach for companies during hard times. Design/Methodology/Approach: The paper will consist of a literature review on the topic, as well as case studies on several companies who have positively or negatively adapted their offerings as a response to the Coronavirus crisis. These companies have taken an aggressive, adaptive, or innovative approach to crisis handling, and this paper will investigate the different approaches and their effect on the core values of their brand. Findings: This paper presents a new framework for companies to decide which strategic approach to follow when a global crisis hits. Through case studies it is clear that companies cannot rely on their regular CSR policy, as a global crisis goes way beyond that. The brand core can be extended in three different ways; the innovative approach, the aggressive approach or the adaptive approach. This paper also finds that the last approach, the passive, should only be used when a company is not directly affected negatively by an ongoing crisis. Research limitations/future research: One key limitation of this paper is that only a selected number of cases have been analysed. Further, it should be noted that the analysis has been done from an outside-in perspective, and for further research an inside-out perspective should also be considered. A different methodology can also be followed, by using media coverage and / or by interviewing former executives. Theoretical implications: The paper introduces a new theoretical framework, which is tested on the COVID-19 crisis, but further analysis should be done on other crisis situations to further prove its validity. Practical implications: This paper shows how companies, big or small, can react to global crises while also managing their brand identity. Keywords: Crisis management, crisis handling, act of kindness, core values, product offerings, strategy approach Paper type: Research paper