Let me tell you my story. This summer I started working in a well-established company. This was when we thought the pandemic was coming to a head and regulations were easing up. My position is in the marketing department where our goal was pretty straight forward, ‘Create a new brand that is strongly ethical and competitive in all aspects of PPE’ in order to be able to keep going forward while the world was upside down.
Myself and the rest of our team took on this task as we started to work on every single possible aspect of building a brand – from scratch. But sooner rather than later, we realised that people do not have a positive perception when it comes to PPE. They would rather avoid this topic than come to terms with the pandemic that the world is facing today.
NOW FOR THE BIG QUESTION, SHOULD WE BE WEARING FACE COVERINGS?
What you think would be a rather sensible topic became more of a taboo subject, causing huge controversy over a range of social media platforms. People simply didn’t want to talk about this subject, never mind educate themselves on why they should be wearing medical masks to not only protect ones-self, but others as well. Maybe this was an attempt to distract themselves from the realities the world was facing? – Who knows!
As a team, we have been carrying out extensive market research. Our findings concluded that the general public’s opinion seemed to be very one sided – we should wear any kind of face covering just to follow the government guidelines. – These included ‘coverings’ such as neck fleeces.
Personally, it has made me feel extremely frustrated. The research and several studies we have conducted ourselves has clearly highlighted the differences that wearing a medical mask makes compared to those of a ‘generic’ face covering.
So, as you can imagine, trying to build a reputable PPE brand during a time when the majority of the general public repulse the product is a tricky task – one that may go beyond marketing team perhaps. I must not forget to mention; shouldn’t it be the Government and general media educating people about wearing a mask with high bacterial filtration efficiency? Not start-up businesses like ourselves! We have tried sending out free samples of our products on multiple occasions. Many potential consumers did not respond to this gesture, not realising that it was free. We simply want to educate and protect our community, whilst creating brand awareness.
Despite this, we didn’t give up. As a team, we filmed videos for educational purposes. I guess it’s ok for people to not be open minded when it comes to a a product that is so repulsed, but we consistently try to create content and give tangible and intangible value to our local community and of course, the world of social media.
One of my social media mentors Nat Berman,
the CEO of Uncoached told me:
When you are going through hell, keep going.
We know we still have a mountain to climb and people’s opinion won’t be easily changed, but we had a great moment of happiness and self-achievement when we recently received our official results and certification for our masks to be medically graded as type IIR. What matters to us, during these uncertain times is to create a value of education and science that goes beyond any sales or revenue. I must admit, we are no scientists, but we share strong ethical and scientific views on the pandemic that has took the world by storm.
Despite the bad, it’s all about the good moments that strive you to keep pushing forward. C’est la vie!
Written by: Katarina Kuzmova
