The future will no longer be like the past as the world witnesses constant changes that affect
people’s everyday life. In fact, with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations
were challenged to adapt their business to the changes, and brands were forced to quickly
manage their business to survive and be connected to the new world. Several approaches
were carried on using different communication strategies. This research intends to
investigate public perceptions about brands' actions and communication during the
pandemic, trying to understand how the different approaches toward the crisis were
perceived among the target audiences. This process is related to the participation of brands
in the discursive phenomenon “we are together”, the hashtag #vaificartudobem (everything
will be fine), or “stay home”, and how their audiences react to it. An exploratory, comparative,
and cross-border (Brazil versus Portugal) empirical study is developed, though a
quantitative method, applying a survey, territorially based on Portugal, in April and May
2020. The results of this study suggest that brands’ presence and participation have real
benefits as their actions are recognized by public opinion (in Brazil and Portugal). Brazilian
audiences consider it more important for brands to be present in critical moments such as
the current one and to promote the public’s awareness and consciousness. Female
respondents believe that brands that embraced the cause and promoted social isolation,
improve their image. This sample also recognizes differences in brands and communication
changes, during COVID-19, and finds it important that brands embrace the cause and promote
social isolation, in order to improve their image.
