Crisis Marketing: While Many Cry, Sell Tissues | ICX

Crisis marketing is the discipline of using a downturn or disruption to strengthen a company's position by moving faster than its competitors toward the customer, rather than waiting for conditions to return to normal. The saying in the title captures the idea that while many cry, there are those who sell the tissues, which means identifying what customers urgently need and putting it within their reach.

Imagine the owner of a restaurant group on the morning the dining rooms are ordered closed. The monthly payroll is due in nine days. The reservation system is full of cancellations, the kitchen has perishable stock for a week, and the only sales channel the company has built in twenty years is a front door. Her managing director proposes to cut every expense and wait. Her marketing manager proposes something less comfortable: to put the menu online by Friday, take card payments by link, contract couriers and write to the customer database before the competitor on the next street does. Both options carry risk. Only one of them keeps customers, and customers are what a restaurant will need when the doors reopen.

In times of crisis you can see who has the skills to survive, grow and develop, and who simply remains static. This is not alien to human nature. When we face a threat, we can freeze, run or attack. In my view, and in the view of the ICX Consulting team, attacking is the way of thinking and acting, and the lesson of any serious disruption is that we must take advantage of the wave. That does not mean recklessness. It means acting with speed and discipline on the things the customer already values, while others are still deciding whether to act.

What made the COVID-19 crisis different?

The pandemic created a business environment without precedent in the modern age. The world has suffered wars, plagues and other misfortunes in the last two hundred years and has found a way to move on, but for anyone under forty, the most imposing events they had experienced were the fall of the World Trade Center in 2001 and the market crash of 2008. Those episodes had a different character. In 2008 the crisis originated in finance and was ultimately a matter of what the banks did. In 2001 it was a scenario of terrorism whose economic shock was absorbed in the short term.

COVID-19 presented a paradigm that was harder to predict. Unlike earlier pandemics, markets were interconnected: a company sold not only locally but globally, and the composition of markets was far more complex than during the Spanish flu of the last century. A supplier closure in one country stopped a production line in another, and a customer who could not leave home changed buying habits within days. The same lesson applies to any shock that arrives fast and across borders, whether it is a health emergency, a currency collapse, a logistics disruption or a sudden change in regulation.

For almost half a decade before the pandemic, many business advisers had insisted that digital transformation was urgent, not only for the back office and for faster, more agile internal processes, but also for the development of digital channels. A web page, a presence on social networks and the ability to accept card payments seem obvious requirements for any serious business, but that was not the reality in many markets. The crisis did not create the need. It exposed it, and it did so with a deadline.

What does the evidence show about digital channels in a crisis?

The picture in Costa Rica was stark. At the time of writing, 49% of the restaurants in the country were reported closed in the author's count, the food delivery apps were saturated, and more than one hundred thousand employees were unable to work because employers had not adapted their channels in time. The sector chamber CACORE documented the scale of the shock: in a survey conducted on March 24, 2020, 42% of restaurants had already closed, about 7,980 businesses, with 109,440 people unemployed out of a sector workforce of roughly 228,000. By the end of April, CACORE reported about 8,500 businesses closed and an estimated 121,000 dismissals, and noted that many small restaurants had not been able to access delivery platforms or couriers, which further reduced their income.

The wider picture confirms that the shift toward digital was not temporary. UNCTAD reports that e-commerce's share of global retail trade rose from 14% in 2019 to about 17% in 2020, and that the trend seen in 2020 was likely to be sustained during recovery. Businesses that could go digital helped soften the downturn, in the words of its acting Secretary-General, and they accelerated a transition with lasting effects on daily life. The lesson for an executive is that crises often compress years of change into months, and the capabilities built under pressure become the baseline that customers expect afterwards.

Can a company really grow in a downturn?

The research suggests that some do. In a study published by Harvard Business Review, Ranjay Gulati, Nitin Nohria and Franz Wohlgezogen found that 9% of companies come out of a recession stronger than ever, and the article examines how they lay the groundwork for that success. The figure should be read with realism. It means that most companies do not emerge stronger, and that the minority that do are rarely those that froze. They are the ones that decided early what to protect, what to cut and where to invest while demand was uncertain.

The trade-offs are real and an honest article should state them. Attacking does not mean spending without limit. A company with weak liquidity must secure cash first, since no marketing initiative survives a missed payroll. It also does not mean abandoning discipline in pricing, as discounting wildly to keep volume can damage margins that took years to build. The distinction lies between defensive actions that preserve the company and offensive actions that position it for the recovery. Strong leaders do both at once, and they communicate clearly with their teams about which is which.

What does it mean to move your business to a digital version?

There is no longer any alternative for most businesses: moving to a digital version has to happen. Not digitizing is a serious mistake, and it matters because of what digitization brings to the company. It means, first, portals for the monitoring and fulfillment of tasks for those who work remotely; second, digital sales channels that make it possible to deliver and collect payment online; third, brand positioning and lead generation; fourth, significant savings in logistics and transaction costs; and fifth, savings by avoiding expenses on rental space and transferring operations online.

The cost of digital transformation is not high if the company has the right partners. It is important to note, however, that technology by itself does not make a difference. It is the strategy, the methodology and the creation of content that allow it to be successful. A store with a website that nobody can find, a catalog without clear pricing or a checkout that fails on mobile devices will not rescue sales, however modern the platform. The sequence matters: define who the customer is and what they urgently need, design the experience, choose the technology and measure the result.

In moments of crisis it is urgent to transform the business, to sell online and to avoid letting the competition win simply because it used tools that are available to everyone. A checklist of the characteristics to look for in an eCommerce platform, which you can download at the end of this article, helps the team compare options before committing. Our practice on digital eCommerce for B2C and for B2B covers the options in each model, and our article on how to sell more through your eCommerce explains what to do after the store is open.

What should a company say in a crisis, and what should it avoid?

Speed is only half of the discipline. The other half is tone. The idea behind selling tissues is to serve a real need, and customers can tell the difference between a company that helps and one that exploits fear. Messages that acknowledge the situation, explain what the company is doing to keep service running and offer something concretely useful are received as support. Messages that use the emergency as a pretext for aggressive promotions, or that make claims the company cannot fulfill, damage trust at the moment when trust is most valuable.

In practice, that means reviewing every campaign against three questions. Does it solve a problem the customer has today? Can the company deliver what it promises under current conditions? Would we be comfortable if the customer read the message again a year from now? Companies that apply this test avoid the reputational errors that tend to follow rushed communication, and they build a form of loyalty that is difficult for competitors to reproduce. It also helps to listen systematically. Service teams, social media and sales conversations are sources of real-time information about what customers need, and the firms that bring that information to the leadership team weekly adapt their offers faster than those that rely on quarterly research.

How does crisis marketing look in different industries?

In restaurants and hospitality, the first moves are direct ordering, delivery partnerships and a database of customers that the business owns, so that it does not depend entirely on third-party apps that charge commissions. In retail, the priority is to connect physical inventory with online ordering, pickup and local delivery, and to use the store as a fulfillment point. In banking and insurance, the crisis accelerates the shift of service and sales to digital channels, and the institutions that already offer onboarding, payments and claims online gain share from those that require a branch visit.

In B2B distribution and manufacturing, customers who can no longer receive visits still need to order, and a simple portal with price lists, stock availability and order tracking can preserve relationships that salespeople previously maintained in person. In professional services, the move is to virtual delivery, productized offers with clear prices and content that demonstrates expertise at a time when clients are anxious and searching for guidance. These are illustrative scenarios, but each shares the same pattern: the company identifies the one thing the customer urgently needs, removes the friction between that need and the company, and communicates it quickly.

What does crisis marketing mean for the C-level?

For the chief executive, the central decision is how much of the budget to defend and how much to invest in position. In a downturn, the temptation is to cut marketing and sales first, since their results are less immediate than operations. The companies that emerge stronger tend to protect the activities that keep them close to customers and to cut spending that does not. The question is whether each expense maintains or builds a customer relationship.

For the chief financial officer, the focus is liquidity, margin and the speed of return. Digital channels shorten the cycle between effort and revenue, and the savings on logistics, transaction costs and rent that digital operations can generate are the kind that finance teams value in uncertain conditions. For the chief commercial and marketing officers, the opportunity is to listen. In a crisis customers' needs change quickly, and the firms that adapt their offer, price and message to those needs earn loyalty that outlasts the crisis. For the chief operating officer, the task is resilience: processes, suppliers and systems that can bend without breaking.

How can a director start next week?

Begin by asking a question that is simple and uncomfortable: if our physical channel disappeared for ninety days, how much of our revenue could we still capture? List the channels that work without human presence, such as a website with ordering, a payment link, a customer database you can write to and a catalog that can be understood without a salesperson. Identify the gap and rank the missing pieces by how quickly they can be implemented and how directly they produce revenue.

Then pick the one action that can be delivered within two weeks, whether it is online ordering for your top fifty products, a payment link for invoices, a campaign to your existing customers or a simple portal for your distributors. Launch it, measure it daily and improve it. To evaluate which platform best suits your plan, use the ICX Digital Transformation toolkit. Preparation is cheap compared with improvisation, and the company that has already thought through its digital fallback acts in days while others take months.

How ICX helps

ICX Consulting is a commercial strategy and customer experience firm headquartered in Miami, and we help companies decide how to respond when conditions change quickly. Our go-to-market strategy work defines which customers, offers and channels deserve priority, our pricing and revenue practice protects margin while you adapt, and our transformation roadmap service sequences the digital investments that will pay back first. We implement on the platforms that suit each business, including HubSpot and Adobe Commerce. If you want to know how exposed your revenue is to a shock in your physical channels, request a diagnostic with an ICX consultant.

To compare options for your online sales channel, download the eCommerce platform checklist below and use the ICX Digital Transformation toolkit to plan the steps.

Frequently asked questions

What does the phrase "while many cry, sell tissues" mean?

It means that a crisis creates urgent needs, and the businesses that recognize them and serve them quickly can grow while others are paralyzed. The tissues stand for whatever customers suddenly require, such as delivery, remote service or safer payments. The principle is to respond to real demand, not to exploit suffering.

Should a company cut its marketing budget during a crisis?

Not automatically. Cut the spending that does not reach customers and protect the activities that keep the relationship alive, such as direct communication, digital channels and service. Tie each line of the budget to a measurable effect on revenue or retention, and review the decision monthly as conditions change.

What is the fastest digital step for a business with no online presence?

Start with the one that connects directly to revenue: a simple way for customers to order and pay, such as a basic online catalog with payment links, together with a communication to your existing customers. A sophisticated platform can follow once demand is proven.

Is digital transformation expensive?

It does not have to be. Costs depend on scope and on choosing partners and tools that fit the size of the business. Beginning with a limited, high-return step and expanding progressively keeps the investment proportional, and avoids buying technology before the strategy is clear.

How do you keep customers loyal during a downturn?

Stay close and be useful. Communicate often and honestly, adapt offers and payment terms to their situation where you can, and make it easy to do business with you through the channels they can actually use. Customers remember who helped them when it was hard.

Every disruption eventually ends, and the companies that act with clarity during it are the ones that customers remember afterwards. If you would like to prepare your business to respond faster than the market the next time conditions change, the ICX Consulting team is ready to help you build that capability.