10 Marketers Who Guided Their Brands With Resilience and Ingenuity When It Mattered Most

Even with the post-9/11 recession and 2008’s economic meltdown in the rearview mirror, few economic calamities matched the speed and dread that accompanied the coronavirus. Last year, as service-sector businesses shuttered and layoffs spread like brushfire, America’s GDP took a nauseating tumble of 3.5%. The first half of this year saw a rebound in consumer spending, but not until multiple quarters of profit had vanished into the ether. The last 18 months, in other words, were hardly the sort of period most brands (unless they’re Amazon) would have viewed as an opportunity.