Rethinking four marketing factors in a changed world
A live event group exhibition inside Animal Crossing organized by Nichole Shinn that featured new and original works by over 20 contributing artists. Animal Crossing has sold 11.77 million units since March 20th and is one new medium that connects us in many unexplored ways.
Vision to action
The way most “leading” brands are marketing themselves inside the current crisis is disappointing and adds to the overarching feeling of being lost at sea. Every next ad I see is a repetition of a flat “A new normal”, “Stay at home”, “Thank you” or “We’re in this together” message that offers no perspective and lacks much needed leadership or courage under pressure. Most messages take a weak route that is drawing on emotional soap-opera like triggers of family, community and sacrifice without using some guts and creativity that would promote INVENTION to project a confident way forward. From brands that have been proclaiming to be ‘on the edge’ of reflecting our daily needs this lack of confidence is a further testament to the monolithic weight of business entities that can only pretend to be agile. They talk fast but do not act fast. And a repackaging of the same old service or product into a pretending to be more relevant one is by far not enough. Overall, most brands have now wasted precious time by failing to go deeper by demonstrating vision. The result will be a lack of preference by the customer as in the customer’s mind, they will be labeled as superfluous.
There are fundamental areas ripe for immediate rethinking. Any brand that is not reporting status on these pressing issues will sink soon or be stranded for good. We need to RETHINK (and consequently INVENT) in the following four areas.
It’s a game of distance. What can we learn?
Joy of width. Junya Ishigami, Architect
1) The definition of success in this new world
We need a new manifest on what constitutes value and it may be a simple yet deeply philosophical answer. Obliviously numbers start to take on a different meaning when it is less about stuffing terminals and planes or shops and malls with people, rather than showing them proof of safety based on data. Safety has become an expanded universe. In case of retail, exclusivity needs to be redefined to be more democratic yet with a virtual allure that can generate desire on par with a physical one. (This, for example, could mean that the era of a personal shopper/stylist or advisor for all has begun.) In terms of social success, what makes a virtual clubbing event so exciting that I want to plan my outfit in advance? Without any stake in the game, an Instagram DJ event will not scale to be a success based on likes alone. Finally and most importantly, the fixation of our transactional initiatives needs divergence to include other pay-offs than just a $ bottom line. That may be the ultimate goal but we need to consider many new detours before we can get there.
2) Our established social and business designations and hierarchies
Can we connect people and businesses in a new way? The Covid-19 pandemic forces us to seek a new socioeconomic logic. We need to connect businesses (particularly smaller ones with larger entities) in a way that is not based on business category and obvious commonalities alone. Unrelated businesses could collaborate with a suffering or closed shop or restaurant by using the latter’s now unused spaces and connect them. Linking numerous unused spaces can build a distanced network to create a socially distanced experience. For example, a gallery could build a system of totally unrelated shop’s storefronts and use the city itself as its exhibition “space”. That way, all parties would highlight their function and feed on each other’s success.
Discovering potential skills.
A new sense of time and place.
3) Human behavior
The most fundamental gauge of predictability has changed. To operate under the assumption that we will not factor in the Covid-19 experience as a new, if not major, driver of our decisions will lead to an immediate disconnect. Yes, instinctively we will try to go back ‘to the way it was’ a few times, but then we will look for new ways because it just won’t feel right. In addition, we will be prioritizing conventional decisions in a very different way. This also means developing a new perception of time and a buffering of our desire for instant gratification. We will be in a learning phase for a while and will be spending time differently or will be using more of it and that is a new factor in all activities. This natural rewiring of human behavior happens after traumatic events such as wars and large scale evolutionary shifts and is at its core a learning principle. This time will make chefs out of folks who never entered a kitchen and suburban gardeners out of hard-core city slickers. We need to recognize this and connect to the need-states of these new behaviors. What is the best kitchen tools app? Maybe it is the one from the renowned NYC restaurant that is now working at half capacity?
4) Health of employees and customers
New mental and physical health strategies and tactics are about to rewrite HR manifestos, curricula, schedules and all things operational. It has never been more relevant to think of internal health structures equal to external customer safety objectives. As a matter of fact, in all things production, it is TRUST that is the ultimate link between the two. Customers need proof of trust and only employees can deliver that. Again, this is not a question of verbalization but of bringing innovation and fact to the fore.
Universal logic. Liam Gillick, A Depicted Horse is not a Critique of a Horse, 2019
Invent (the new) now!
Marketing teams and consultancies need to immediately reshape themselves to be able to facilitate the discussions above. The right mix of resources needs to be assembled and we need to expand opportunities for input from new contributors. This is no longer about being in the patina business of dressing up challenges and handing out departmental responsibilities or worse, about the self-pitying tone we see in the aforementioned ads. It is about solving new, holistic business strategies that involve product, brand and experience as one decisive act. It’s about displaying a pioneering spirit. An action that actually provides a solution and not just hands out a sentiment. We got the stay-at-home messages from everyone, but let’s get to invent on solving a new today.