Review Study About Marketing Strategies Implemented During Covid -19 Pandemic in Both Global and Sri Lankan Context
Authors: Sanjaya K.J.M. Surantha 
Published: May 2024

Marketing strategies play a significant role in achieving an organization’s long-term goals and short-term objectives. In order to access and involve with target audience in a dynamic global environment, marketing strategies should be developed in modern competitive business world. Therefore, this research intends to clear the way to a review study about Marketing strategies implemented during COVID -19 pandemic in both global and Sri Lankan context. In fact, the importance of execution of proper marketing strategies as a driving force to gain competitive advantage during post COVID – 19 period in a dynamic business world primarily encouraged the researcher to conduct this study. As a result, investigation and critical review of previous and recent studies in line with the similar phenomena of research studies were conducted in order to absorb important details and findings. Through the review study, it was possible not only to have an understanding about marketing strategies implemented by different organizations under different industries in both Sri Lankan context and global context to combat COVID -19 pandemic to survive in the business but also it was possible to identify some challenges encountered by different organizations during COVID -19 pandemic. As a summary, it was evident through the derived conclusions of the review study that interaction of consumers with online shopping became frequent due to social distance and less movement with physical visit to shops and super markets during COVID -19 pandemic. Further to above, online shopping becomes a main preference by majority of consumers has created a challenging barrier for retailers to encourage people to visit their retail stores although unique elements of visual merchandising are a powerful marketing tool in attracting consumers in various industries. It can also be concluded through the study that consumers prefer to pay a higher price for luxury items or luxury goods associated with good brand reputation while previous studies also reveal that consumer ethnocentrism causes customers to overestimate locally produced items or goods compared to imported items or goods resulting in the rejection of foreign brands. When implementation of current marketing strategies of organizations under different industries both in Sri Lankan context and global context during post COVID – 19 period is considered, social media marketing strategy should be aligned by focusing on interacting more with customers by paying more attention to the aspects of creative content creation, correct targeting on influencers, localisation of brand based on location and proper data collection about consumer needs. Further visual merchandising strategy need to be integrated with online marketing and social media marketing of the organization by offering digitalized real time client experience on the website of the organization by utilising augmented reality concepts since consumers interact more with online shopping nowadays. When it comes to premium pricing strategy, it is vital for organizations to position the product or service in customers’ mind price as a quality indicator specially for products associated with an excellent brand reputation among customers to convey a message that high price indicates high quality. As per the derived conclusions, when consumer ethnocentrism is taken into consideration as a strategy, application of Indigenous Marketing is very useful to promote the requirement of manufacturing locally and buying locally to supplement ethnocentric ideals of citizens by making sure high-quality products and by reminding customers of the value of supporting domestic enterprises.