The rate of change recently has been profound. We’ve experienced our businesses, social relationships, communication, education, family, commerce, healthcare, transportation, government, and more all changing. Working remotely has become the new normal. It is perhaps the most dynamic time of transformation we may ever experience in our lifetime.
Being prepared for what’s next, despite the uncertainty, is tantamount to personal and business survival. The ability to adapt, innovate and pivot quickly is how we survive and how we can win through this transformational period. Here are what we see as emerging new models for opportunity and super trends that are arising:
Nurturing Remote Culture
How can you help your remote employees feel more connected? We, in homage to the classic days of Mad Men advertising and marketing and our culture of creating emotional connections, enjoy our Friday afternoon Zoom meeting and cocktail hour. Happy Hour themes change weekly like Viva Mexico, Rat Pack, Tiki Iniki, Prohibition Sedition, and more. Let your team name the theme. Virgin drinks, appetizers, decorations and costumes are welcomed. Have fun with your own personal office culture and ideas that boost morale and make your team look forward to connecting with one another.
Initiate Online Personal Communicators
Can you answer how your brand can help consumers feel safe while most vulnerable? How can your brand be the one with solutions for them? For example, there are brands in the healthcare space now who will capture market share by creating online connected caregivers and medical support. Many are already answering these questions with virtual AI caregivers and Apps, 24/7 online medical advisors, senior support voice assistants, educational video series, podcasts and webinars that can be readily accessed.
Incorporate Virtual Platforms, Online Transactions and Social Compassion
Gen Z will turn to brands able to leverage the seamless online transactions since it is what they are most comfortable with. Online ordering/delivery-only is a current now motto. You should be setting your brand in a position to be visible to this generation as they mature quickly into adults. Gen Z cares greatly about community activism and cause-related endeavors. How are you establishing your brand’s social position in their world right now?
Take a Hygienic Stance and Action
The public is more conscious now than ever before of how you manage cleanliness for their health and your workers. Imagine a clinic, car service, hotel, store, airline or restaurant where the workers aren’t cleaning surfaces or wearing gloves and masks. The minute someone posts that they aren’t on social media, that business will be persona non grata. Point being, take a stance by including internal controls and act by making the public aware of your controls. Think about what else you can do to remedy their fears and know that you care.
Socializing Digital Spheres Using Technology
Loneliness, before COVID-19 was already considered at epidemic proportions. What is your brand doing to nurture digital communication and social interaction between customers who may be in crisis? One client of ours is sending informative, comforting videos from its President and staff members. Another is reporting work in the community about helping the homeless. Yet another, via Nextdoor, a community App, is offering to drop off home-cooked meals to disabled and senior citizens. Facebook Live is a great tool to get your audience involved. What can you and your staff do to build your own digital spheres to offer support and create a stronger emotional connection?
About:
Los Angeles based Sagon-Phior, a full service marketing and branding agency, utilizes emotional branding to build better relationships between a brand and an audience. Emotional branding enables more effective ways to increase brand awareness, loyalty and sales while revealing insights to better understand important, often unseen, patterns of consumer behavior.
Sagon-Phior has successfully applied this unique practice to many national and global brands in the technology, healthcare, banking and lifestyle industries. For more information, go to Sagon-Phior.com
