The Corona Effect: Why the Coronavirus Outbreak Is the Best Thing to Ever Happen to Corona Beer's Brand
By Keaton
It is no surprise that with the news cycle lately searches for Coronavirus have been sharply spiking. Driven by fear or curiosity, Coronavirus as a search term has skyrocketed in popularity.
But did you know that searches for Corona the beer have skyrocketed as well?
A strange symptom of the deadly virus outbreak, Corona the beer is trending in Google search. So is this a good thing for Corona or a PR disaster?
Well it is not just their search that is trending up, their social media is much more active than usual as well. Here is a comparison of their instagram posts before and after the Coronavirus outbreak in Wutan, China.
Corona's Instagram Before Outbreak:
Corona's Instagram After Outbreak:
One thing is clear, they are getting many more likes and comments than usual, the caveat being a lot of the attention is clearly jokingly or mistakenly virus-centric. Here is a sampling of some of the comments from their instagram:
So overall, is the viral outbreak the best PR boon Corona has had or an unmitigated disaster? If sales are an indicator, it would seem that the outbreak has been moving Coronas off the shelves.
So far since December when news of the virus first broke, Corona sales in the first quarter of 2020 are showing an increase while some of their competitors are showing declining sales.
Meanwhile, Constellation Brands, the parent company of Corona beer, has seen a stock increase of 2.23% in the last month. Of course it is impossible to know whether the increase in sales and stock price is at all related to increased brand awareness from the Coronavirus because correlation does not equal causation.
The problem with using Correlation Brands stock price as a metric is further compounded by the fact that they are also the parent brand of other huge names in spirits like Modelo and Svedka vodka.
So is the Corona effect real? You will have to weigh the evidence and decide for yourself, but perhaps the effect is best summed up by this sentiment:
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