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It’s been a strange couple of years. An understatement if there ever was one. We’ve seen the rules of engagement shift or be entirely thrown off, given the uncertainties of how the consumer thinks, acts and feels. It’s been an ever-changing context.

We’ve seen the retail landscape accelerate its change as consumers adopted home delivery en masse as the preferred avenue for products. Continuing to suffer or shutter in the wake of mandated closings and greatly limited consumer access, Retail will need to address newly acquired consumer behaviors of having the store shipped to them.

So, what does that mean for brands? We have a society which has grown accustomed to being distanced. Socially and I would argue, emotionally. In response to the realities under C19, we have seen consumers embrace the idea of ordering what they want, when they want it; caring less for how they feel about the brand and more about an immediate satisfaction. No small wonder, we’ve all been experiencing a loss of control; which up until Covid, we had thought it was all about us and that we can do anything; anytime, anywhere. For the past two years we’ve had no ability to brag about our purchases or wear our identity through the latest couture. Instead, we grasped at every opportunity to feel like we were at the wheel and not simply being battered by elements out of our influence.

Marketing responded in kind. Giving information fast, quick and highly transactional. We quickly slid back to the beginnings of marketing. Unsophisticated and direct. Programmatic was our savior. At least for a time.

Throughout C19, the medical community took instruction from the experience of last century’s Spanish Influenza to communicate and forecast medical impact models. So what came after the Spanish Flu? The “roaring twenties” with life lived in abandon. Overt behavior to counter the feelings of isolation with the celebration of being alive, living every day in excess. Brands take note. Even brands operating outside of retail. This is your opportunity to reset. It’s time to anticipate the imminent change and capitalize on it. As North Americans look to forget the sadness, sorrow and fear and replace it with all things good and events that empower.

By no means am I suggesting that every brand needs to be over the top crazy fun. No, not at all. Every brand needs to be genuine in its expression. More than ever, brands need to mean more than the thing they do/sell. It’s time to add more heart to the cart by rebalancing the transactional relationship customers adopted to survive C19, with initiatives that stimulate brand love for the longer benefit of both the brand and its customer.

As Les Binet and Peter Field wrote in their paper, The Long and the Short of It (IPA 2012); “A succession of short-term response-focused campaigns (including promotionally driven ones) will not succeed as strongly over the longer term as a single brand-building campaign designed to achieve year-on-year improvement to business success.” The paper continued with a recommendation on the mix: “the optimum balance of brand and activation expenditure is on average around 60:40”.

I believe there’s no better time to reintroduce your brand to your prospects and customers, inviting them into a deeper committed relationship. Employ storytelling to enlighten what you’re all about so that you can capture their imagination, draw them closer, while carving out a piece of their awareness as you gain their trust. Get reacquainted with the strategies and channels where the notion of relationship can be fostered and nurtured.

Now more than ever, it’s critical to understand your values, what you stand for and how you directly benefit the consumer – in clear human terms. The opportunity is now to establish a real human connection with your customers. This is what they need. And, after a couple of years of feeling alone, this is what they want. The brands that quickly pivoted to transactions, survived; the brands that evolve the relationship to that of a human connection, will be the brands that win the long game.

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If you are a brand who is struggling how to elevate yourself out of the noise of transactions, give us a call; it’s what we do. Elemental works with companies to establish and nurture real human connections between the brand, the people who work at the brand and the people who are their customers.