Authors: Theodore Chadjipadelis, Georgia Panagiotidou, Sofia Magopoulou

Title: COVID-19 Pandemic: Threat or Opportunity? Political marketing strategies for the Countries of the Balkan and the Black Sea Region

Abstract

The aim of the proposed paper is to map the public policy response to the pandemic in the region of the Balkans and the Black Sea, analyze the political marketing tools used in order to convey the policies to citizens and eventually categorize the strategies used in the selected countries. Furthermore the output of the analysis will offer a tool for further use in the analysis of the results of the management during the pandemic and the subsequent assessment of the government’s response in the future and whether the strategies used, contributed to the successful or not response to the pandemic. The proposed approach, by assessing the marketing strategy of the countries in managing to deal with a pandemic crisis may contribute to the revisiting of the role of the state and the public sector in the post-pandemic period, which is now called upon to be ready in the future for the crises to come.