Viral Branding: be careful out there
So there we have it, now that English football has blown its sanitised whistle the Covid-19 Coronavirus is properly a thing that the media can point at, it has consequences. The message: This shit is about to get real.
To celebrate this first big public inconvenience me and the family headed out to Tesco. My first exposure to panic buying was last weekend, we laughed our way to the the checkouts after coming across the empty toilet roll aisle - Let’s be honest, it’s a curious post-apocalyptic priority.
Last night, very different. Aisle after aisle was stripped bare, pulses, pasta, cans, cooking and cleaning staples, it really looked like people were getting ready to go into the bunker.
Of course Streatham Tesco is a single data point people are engaging in the crisis in different ways. We’re seeing a lot of bell-curves from epidemiologists right now and that seems to be the case in people’s opinions too. There seem to be two poles of response - denial and panic with most people say in the middle feeling a nervous and bemused. In that context a bit of panic retail makes a lot of sense - it’s immediate and real and it gives us a sense of agency and control.
Getting back to the football it shouldn’t be a surprise that the media focusses on the big marquee events, after all they’re about to lose an awful lot of content (the amount of journos talking to other journos who are no better qualified on issues of public health or sentiment than they are gives me complete faith in their ability to fill that particular hole). The noise about celebrity exposure (come on Tom Hanks, there are worse places to self-isolate than the Gold Coast of Queensland in March) is easy to report but it’s going to be the accretion of granular day to day stuff that is going to change lives.
I’m going to make a bet on school closures coming to the U.K. in the next couple of weeks (the updates from my eight year old’s school suggest I’m not the only one) and when they do they will be utterly debilitating for families. Let’s be honest about this - schools allow us to go to work. The domino effect of school closures will be felt most by those without extended family support networks- it’s going to test companies character as well as their bottom lines. The self employed and all those people who are forced into gig economy roles and freelancing so that businesses can afford to pay the social costs of full time employees will be hit hardest. We can talk as much as we like about flexible working but presenteeism pervades business culture so mindsets will need to change if we want to make remote working work for more than the lucky few.
So what can brands do? I’m already getting emails entitled ‘Important Update’ which always makes me wonder ‘Important to whom?’ Brands have a tendency to overestimate the part they play in people’s lives and that can lead to a weird disconnect. This is probably a time for humility on everyone’s part.
Right now brands need to look at their assets and see what they have in their store cupboard. This means asking two questions:
- How can we tangibly support disrupted lives with our products or services?
- In what way do our voice, personality and relationships dictate that we should engage with this crisis?
In the first case you have to be brutally honest - if there’s nothing much you can do practically then it’s probably better to do nothing. There will be an incredible amount of brand noise, of businesses pretending they’re helping when they’re just selling. Everyone will be chasing this particular ambulance so you need to ask yourself if you really need to. I would suggest that adding to the noise helps no-one unless you can offer something real and relevant.
For most brands the second question will be the one they really need to engage with. You are going to have to say something, even it’s just some variation on ‘business as usual’. This isn’t just a question of tone of voice, it’s a more fundamental question of the permission your brand affords you. Can you joke about self-isolation? Probably not if your brand voice is usually serious and sober. Can you make big claims of support? Probably not if you can’t do anything practical
As ever the brand that gets it right is Lush. They went early and they went real by opening their stores for hand washing for everyone. They provided real social utility in the High Street and did do in a typically warm and witty way. But here’s the thing: it wasn’t just opportunistic, it didn’t happen overnight. Lush could do it because they are consistently brave in confronting social issues and have created a brand that is singular and focussed and importantly is very clear about it’s role in people’s lives and culture.
Brands need to be authentic, as hard as that might seem to many. Responses need to be tangible and measured, human in scale and unhysterical in tone. And if you can’t do that best not bother and instead focus on the welfare of your colleagues.