Through the Post-Pandemic Looking-Glass

Over the past year businesses have had to adapt like never before. As we move into the so called ‘new normal’ fresh questions and challenges arise for businesses and brands; why do we exist as a business, what do we stand for, how do we engage better with our employees and customers, how can we cut through the noise, attract fresh opportunities and thrive?

Rather than poring over weighty academic tomes for the answers, we reached for the creative musings of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the English novelist, logician, mathematician and photographer, better known as Lewis Carroll.

Although published in 1865 and 1871 respectively, ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ and its sequel, ‘Through the Looking-Glass’, might well have been created as allegories for the present day.

In this two-part blog, we examine some of the questions being posed through the lens of the colourful characters of Lewis Carroll’s imagination, those that business owners may well be asking themselves as they emerge from lockdown on a quest to start a new adventure.

“How puzzling all these changes are! I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to another.”

During the pandemic, businesses sought to adapt to survive. Now they need to embrace that change and learn to thrive. It’s all too easy to lose sight of ‘who you are’ as a business, especially during times of constant flux. It has never been more important to bring a distinctive message to market with clarity and confidence.

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”

Looking to the past for answers, will not necessarily create solutions that will chime with the current market and your key audiences. When the future was an extension of the present, it was reasonable to assume that what worked today would also work next year. That assertion must now be challenged.

“You used to be so much muchier. You’ve lost your muchness.”

As businesses focus on the day to day, the ‘spark’ that once lit them up can fade. Now is the time to rethink, reimagine and reenergise your business and brand strategies. But where exactly do you start?

 “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where—” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

Understandably, many companies are finding themselves in the same predicament as Alice, unsure of what their brands stand for and uncertain of which direction to take their businesses next.

 Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).

Join us on our next blog as we embark on the next step of our journey, which looks at the key steps that curious businesses are taking to challenge brand strategy, gain clarity on brand purpose and communicate their vision and value.