- Crayola presents “Wonder Markers” and talks about its advantages and strategies for the next back to school
- In a context where it is not known what the return to school will be like, Crayola continues to bet on creativity to continue growing
- Adrián Romero, Marketing Director at Crayola, talks to Merca 2.0 about the launch of “Wonder Markers” and its projections
The arrival of the pandemic meant a radical change in the way we relate to our environment: at home, on the streets, at work, at school, in markets, in supermarkets. In all the places we used to frequent day by day.
Even today, despite the fact that we can already visit those places, it is still strange and unreliable for us to step on the places that, I repeat, before we frequented with all naturalness, without any fear.
For a few months, we have been resuming some of our activities considered essential for our development, with the aim of, in principle, the economic reactivation, but also with the idea of adapting to a new normality.
However, since the arrival of Covid-19 in our country and, consequently, the establishment of the pandemic, those who have not returned to their daily activities are schools at all levels.
According to a study carried out by the Internet MX Association and OCC Mundial, which is called “Online Education in Mexico 2021”, 85 percent of the students had their classes completely online, 10 percent did so in mixed mode and only the remaining 5 percent in face-to-face mode.
The situation with Covid-19, as it deepened, forced schools to rethink strategies to make online classes have a positive impact on students, especially children, whose development depends a lot on the work done in classrooms through different learning dynamics.
The same happened with companies focused on this sector, which, as a result of the pandemic and the establishment of online classes, required to adapt to a new normality and modality to offer their products.
Today, in the midst of the uncertainty of the next start of the school year, which is not known for sure if it will be online, mixed or face-to-face in its entirety, in Merca 2.0 we talked with Adrián Romero, Marketing Director of the Crayola company, about the launch of their Wonder Makers line:
“This is a project that we have been developing since 2019 and it was a product that we developed from Mexico and for Mexico, and for all of Latin America. The goal of this product is, in principle, to give consumers a different option of markers that are specifically suitable for homework and school projects and, as a consequence, to help us establish Crayola as a leader in water-based markers. “
In 2020, the pandemic and its confinement appear, forcing people to seclude themselves in their homes, doing work at home and taking school classes in the same place and / or environment, which is why there was a significant change in terms of the implementation of new strategies for companies developing the kinds of products Crayola makes. Given this, Adrián Romero says that, in effect, the pandemic made his strategy change a lot: “Regularly, we were used to the fact that innovation came from the United States and went to the different subsidiaries. Now it is the other way around, we are developing products from Mexico to other countries ”.
On the other hand, Adrián Romero mentions, it also changed “the way in which we are approaching consumers, from communication, content, packaging, and in the way we are making it known that Crayola is also developing things new and that Crayola is not only a brand of crayons, but is a young brand, bold and that is evolving at the same time as consumers ”.
Based on this idea, consumers are not static, but are in constant movement, changing from one moment to another. The pandemic has been a fundamental part so that the attitude of consumers is not always the same.
Likewise, the rebound that eCommerce had after the pandemic is another factor to consider for the future, since, in its strictest sense, Covid-19 is here to stay and now all adapt to an era with the disease around. So also for brands that will need to implement new strategies to survive and, above all, to continue forward.
“The only constant is change,” says Adrián Romero, talking about what Crayola is preparing about its strategies to lead the market.
“The consumer has always evolved. The advent of technology changed the relationship people have with products. In that sense, Crayola had two options: be the anti-technology company or, what we did, embrace the technology and look at the opportunities that we could take advantage of, combining our products with the new technologies.
“Thus we began to develop, in addition to the content part, the applications, which serve as a complement between the physical and the virtual. The second very big change we have had is the relationship we have had, as a result of the pandemic, getting closer to consumers and giving them even more options to maintain a certain normality within what they were doing ”.
“We have developed some initiatives, such as” The quarantine of illustration “, but we have also created alliances with important companies such as Kellogg’s, Cartoon Network and other artists such as Paulo Villagran, where we try to teach children new techniques so that they can use the products that they have at home and that they do something that they like, that makes them feel good ”.
“We are also adapting strategies and very important eCommerce. We began to take steps, from years ago (2017), with the part of eCommerce, which is a bet on the future. We had a growth of seven times what we were having in eCommerce and that has taught us to adapt new technologies, to embrace them and to see them as our allies ”.
The outlook for the future in the school sector still looks very uncertain, despite the fact that they are already talking about the return of classes in their face-to-face mode.
Of course, for brands this would represent a new return to old sales scenarios, perhaps broader, but, not knowing exactly what the next school year will be like, the scope that these could generate is still unknown.
“What we are now looking for is to offer a product that helps with school projects, in addition to homework. We do not know if the return to school will be physical, hybrid or virtual. However, we have to keep moving forward and the children have to keep studying. What we want is to continue with products and options so that children can, by using this product, spend their time as well as possible, as far as possible ”.
“For us, last year, 2020, was growth compared to 2019, and it is something that many companies cannot say. This happened due to two factors. First: the quarantine helped us a lot in this part because we know that children can spend some time in school with digital devices, be it a tablet, a phone or a computer, but they also want a certain degree of normality, and that is where there was a lot of coexistence with the mother, the father, the brothers, to do activities that will help this coexistence. In that regard, our markers and our paints were among the best-selling products ”.
“The second part was the game and the toy, the game was also a very important part. Not having their classmates from school, from the classroom, they turned to mom, dad, siblings. That helped us stay afloat and grow in sales in 2020 ”.
“Now, in 2021, it has been a more difficult year. We are having issues from lack of inputs in some things, price increases, and even so we predict that we will have a good year, very similar to 2020, and it will be through always maintaining creativity and looking for new ways to reach our consumers with products such as, in this case, ‘Wonder Markers’ ”.
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