Welcome in to the Covid'19 shop...
Human nature is very fickle and very opportunistic... and what better time than adversity to understand it.. As we see around ourselves today, we are caught in a rapidly shifting global crisis of unprecedented magnitudes... some of us happy and safe, very privileged....
Some of us struggling, lining up for food, some of us not having the opportunity to say good bye to our loved ones, some of us at the standstill of silent grief...
But adversity has bred human lust and commercial opportunity to gargantuan proportions, with sheltered empathy being turned into consultation, consultation to advice, advice being turned into actionable plans and all of us hapless, world wide citizens immersed into deep pandemic waves of amplified commercial noise..
My gmail has 1,00,000 unread emails, however I saw an email today which piked my attention and forced me to think about writing about it... the email mentioned Covid discounts: I must say this rather took me back, as how a word with discount could be attached to one of the greatest human tragedies.
And then I realized the Covid'19 message is spread everywhere... we have created a marketplace based on grief and desperation and veiled it to suit our ambition....
And so is human opportunity, and industry ready to commercialize grief and package it into a Ready to Eat commercial snack (RTE): tips, information, 10 ways how to, 17 reasons why to... rapidly eating away our time and mindspace, commercialised crises donation... giving us nothing back in return but vacuum...
While great human tragedies unfold in the background but for others, not related to us: losing loved ones, frontline crisis, PPE shortages, and young lives lost, doctors losing their children to Covid'19, care homes becoming hotspots. Moments of despair, desperation and utter loneliness.
It's now time to uphold our humanity, rise above abhorrent tendencies and stop writing our personal heroic story behind the crises and our petty survival.
We are not in a market place... we should not be shopping...
Building compelling industry programs and narratives
4 年Tragedy induced discounts are nothing new. Sometimes they are overt, most of the time not so much. For e.g when a natural disaster strikes and the stock market crashes, that is an effective discount on stocks. Is it insensitive to buy cheap stock then? When there is an excessive produce of a perishable agricultural good, the farmer is forced to sell it as a throwaway price. As consumers we gleefully buy without ever thinking what happens to the poor farmer who earns pittance for all his toil. Many providers of collaboration tools are today providing extended trials of their products or free usage for 3 months. Obviously this is being done not because companies are benign but because they know that a significant percentage of people will become paying customers after a few months. Is that an opportunistic or altruistic discount? What is worse? The fact that an apparel maker who is desperate to keep himself in business offers a covid discount or a mask maker overcharges for a mask due to excessive demand? We are all opportunists as consumers and businesses. We are always in market if we have the means. The issue is not of empathy but of framing.
Director at Egon Zehnder
4 年The Dark Side of the human conscience vividly described. Your candor is hard hitting and heartwarming!
Data Science & Generative AI Professional | Texas McCombs Postgrad in Data Science & Business Analytics | AI/ML Blackbelt & Gen AI Certified (Analytics Vidhya) | Ex-IT Sales Manager with 12 years of experience.
4 年Very thoughtful
President and Group Chief Digital Officer @ RP Sanjiv Goenka Group
4 年An interesting point.. but fortunes have been built on human misfortune, such is life. Do some research on how some of the great houses today made money in their initial days, and you will see the same.
Sales Enablement | Project Management | Learning Experiences | PreSales | Product Management | Account Based Managament |
4 年I?concur with your thoughts... well written article