The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Shift of Banks’ Marketing Preferences: Case of Listed Private Commercial Banks in Bangladesh

The COVID-19 pandemic has hastened the changes in patterns of service delivery worldwide, including banking. Lockdown and restricted physical presence posed formidable disruptions and challenges to the overall banking industry that required them to adopt a sustainable and innovative business model promptly to continue operations and to protect financial stability. In response to this crisis, all banks effectively reset their agenda by incorporating less human-interactive, a digital mechanism where the marketing team of the banks played a pivotal role by shifting their traditional marketing practices to digital techniques. The study examines the effect of this alteration and its implications by undertaking a survey of bank personnel of all the listed Private Commercial Banks (PCBs) in Bangladesh. A non-parametric Mann-Whitney Wilcoxon test identifies strong differences in expectations of marketing formats in the pre-pandemic and present periods. The analysis reveals statistically significant demographic differences of preference between older and younger marketing personnel in all banks; as well as between Islamic and Conventional Banks. The findings are a wake-up call for banks’ policymakers that have multifaceted implications in formulating alternative digital based marketing strategies to continue sustainability and to remain competitive in the long run.