OK, so it is a very weird time right now, the Coronavirus has most of Europe are on lockdown and its people are working from home.
Usually I would focus on asset management industry companies, but I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what companies across the wide spectrum of industries are doing in light of current events.
Ace & Tate Instagram Story drawing competitions
Ace & Tate are an eyeglasses company (I happen to have some of their frames myself) and on the first day for many working from home in the UK, they put together a clever drawing competition which allowed people to be creative and also win a pair of frames.
I just really liked the simplicity of it, and it seems to have had a great response too! You can check out their instagram here.
Leyton Orient Football Club’s Ultimate #QuaranTeam
The entire football league has been suspended until April 3rd, with many missing the hole that football has left at the weekends Leyton Orient decided to start up their ultimate QuaranTeam matches, asking all football clubs across the world to join in.
The response has been very popular and they have a JustGiving page set up to help grassroots and lower league football clubs affected by the loss of earnings and MIND charity.
#MuseumFromHome
With many of the world’s biggest museums and art galleries closing for public safety during the coronavirus crisis, they have taken to sharing the art in another way, online.
Quite a few of the big institutions have now started to post pieces of art on Instagram under the hashtag #museumfromhome so people can still get their art fix.
What else are companies doing during the Coronavirus?
As well as how companies are trying to keep the masses sane via social media during this time, other companies have really stood out with their commitment to help too.
LVMH, the house that owns Louis Vuitton announced that it will halt production of it’s perfumes and help tackle the demand for anti-viral products across France, and not only that, they will be delivered free of charge to health authorities and institutions too.
Elsewhere, Airbnb have advised that they will offer full refunds to those affected by the Coronavirus due to extenuating circumstance. The company itself has come under fire from the hosts who are angry they will be losing money during this time, however Airbnb have not budged on their stance.
ZOOM, the videoconferencing app have also been making a name for themselves by offering their products to schools for free so they can teach pupils remotely. And it hasn’t been too bad for their business either, since providing help to schools the net worth of ZOOM’s founder has increased by $2 billion.
Some companies are getting bad press during the Coronavirus crisis
Not everyone is going to be coming up roses during this time, and one such example of this is Accor hotel, who have not offered refunds to those who did not book flexible booking, even for cities that are on complete lockdown. And whilst they did revise their policy 2/3 days later, it had already left quite a bad taste in people’s mouth.
The upshoot of this is that there are a lot of people who will not be doing business with them again, and are talking about this on social media, so it will be interesting to see how they fair once the pandemic decreases. You can read more on Twitter here.
I am sure we will continue to see more great (and bad) examples of how companies react over the next few months.