COVID19. Ad execs apparently aren’t inactive during the crisis. Have you noticed how many companies are putting out messages like these?

I am getting at least five per day of these type of messages. 

There are several ads like that every day in the newspaper.  Most of the news, in print or otherwise, is about COVID-19.  There is very little else.  With people not going out, the crime rate in NYC has dropped considerably and with the courts closed, anyone awaiting trial is in limbo.  

Randy those are not Ad Execs, this is from PR Firms the Spin Doctors.  Ad Firms do not get involved in these types of messaging, they do not have the capabilities.  Here is a link to the best ones in NYC which most of these guys use - exceptions Padilla Spear in MSP and Hill & Knowlton Worldwide

https://www.expertise.com/ny/nyc/public-relations-firms

Yes. Taco Bell lets me know every day that they are here for me. 
Olive Garden has free apps and breadsticks for me as well. 

Yeah. A lot of my clients have asked me to create their COVID-19 responses.

Part of it, at least at first, was more about not wanting to be the odd company out that didn't change their messaging. It's stupid, but in this era, you're also judged based on what you don't say. The company that doesn't say something about how they've responded "doesn't care." I put that in quotation marks because I didn't release a statement from answerMug. We're an online organization. We've always been online. We're largely unaffected. While I may care about COVID-19 and the people impacted, this site is not a public health agency and I'm not going to accept responsibility for posting health info. 

The second layer is that this is an advertising opportunity. The way people live and function is different. It's an opportunity for companies to push thier lesser-known products. Jaimie mentioned Zoom in a question. They were an early responder to this. Zoom gave free access to all schools. You know who's using Zoom right now? Virtually every single child in America with net access. My kids meet their teachers on it and I know families throughout the country who are the same. It sounds generous, and maybe the founder/CEO really is, but what he really did was introduce the whole country to his product and secure lifetime customers starting with the youngest possible demographic. He's golden. 

And, we'll see a lot more of this as time goes on. This whole thing really uprooted life as we know it and created challenges we never anticipated. It's changed how we eat, where we go, our schedules, the tools we use, our finances... Very few industries are unaffected. 

I pondered making a marketing push for the site right now too. The thing is, even though I work in marketing, I really hate the idea of capitalizing on a crisis and I'm personally sick of all the messaging. I feel like I've entered the Twilight Zone. Something about all this feels very, very wrong. Everyone is joining together and holding virtual hands and singing... to me, it almost feels cult-like. I remember the post 9-11 world, and in some ways this feels similar. I hear no air traffic despite being near a major airport. Everything is closed. People are feeling unified. But there's something else... I don't know. It feels false. Maybe I should post a question on that. I can't be the only one who feels a lack of authenticity here.