Keep Calm & Mask On. Oh, and don't forget to reinvent

Masks, like a costume, allow us to play a character, step outside the norm... embrace the unusual. They protect us in interesting ways, both emotionally and physically.

This is certainly true for us at Eliel Cycling, where the shutdown has forced us to embrace the unusual and play a new role, and literally make masks, which we call Fun Facades. While we had to shut down our office and factory in San Diego, we were recently allowed to open up with safe practical distancing measures to do one thing: make masks for our community and donate half of them to healthcare professionals on the front lines.

Ever since, we have been hard at work crafting the overwhelming number of masks that have been ordered. It brings us incredible pride to make masks that will protect our loyal legion of cyclists that we consider family with a bit of flair, as well as the masks made for our ALL FOR ONE, ONE FOR ALL AND ONE FOR ONE program. Here’s a video…

Although it’s only been two weeks since we started this mask mania and there is no way we can keep up with the demand, the shift, the new role, the mask we now wear, has taught us incredibly valuable lessons and helped inform our future in meaningful ways.

It’s certain things have changed, forever, on account of this coronavirus. At some point we will emerge on the other side of this climb, masks on for a while, and find a brave new world, one in which we can reinvent our product offering and brand position to thrive in the post-crisis world. There are a few important measures we will consider henceforth: disentangle, ideate, verify and graduate. Internally, the decisions we are and will be making are a result of data and facts we glean for the perspective this crisis as availed to us.

For sure, this whole thing sucks in so many real and untold ways. Just the disruption alone is existential for many businesses. And the issues are manifold… supply chain, delivery, cash flow, eager but worried teammates, shell-shocked consumers and shifting behavior to name a few obvious changes.

So, first off, this tumult has allowed, forced, mandated and otherwise compelled us to disentangle our business and simplify all of it. It’s also forced us to ideate; become more creative in not only what we produce, but also how we decide what to produce and how to share with the community these new ideas. Then we know we need to verify our suppositions, not by spending money on tests, but rather conferring more openly with our community and giving them equity in our product curation. And finally, we plan to graduate our go-to-market efforts with metered, considered efforts that we can build over time, rather than huge launches that are risky and can be way too ephemeral.

The commonality here among these measures, in addition to an emphasis on facts, both empirical and evidential, is a belief in our own creativity… that “OZ never gave nothing to the tin man, that he didn’t, didn’t already have.”  This especially goes for this time of crisis, where we have no choice but to rely on our inner marketing savant, to not just create a business that survives (because that’s boring) but also to address and serve real human needs (because that’s exciting), knowing that the joy, practicality and ease of riding a bike will be even more vital to our community’s sense of standing and well being on the other side of this climb.

While we may be wearing a metaphorically different mask on the other side of this, you'll feel the warmth of our smile underneath.

Stay Covered, Stay Connected, Stay Human and Stay Engaged

#coronavirus #reinvention #marketing #maskon