By Hasan Fadlallah, CEO of Brand Lounge

There is no doubt that the current situation will impact businesses in general. Some industries might be reshaped completely, and others will need to adapt to jump on the new “normal” wagon.

Hasan Fadlallah

The post-Covid-19 era will have an economy shaped by new habits & regulations based on reduced close-contact interactions and tighter travel & hygiene restrictions. The current disruption will change how we eat, work, shop, exercise, manage our health, socialize, and spend our free time – at an unprecedented rate of change.

While managing the current health crisis is the first priority, it will take some time still to start noticing and preparing for the mid and long-term ripple effects. So what should companies do in the meantime?

The economy needs to improvise to keep businesses, both big and small, afloat, and in order to do so, we need to rethink and redesign the value that is exchanged between companies and consumers.

Brands are here to stay and will become even more vital and synonymous to the people behind them as businesses continue to communicate and operate remotely, hence creating positive brand moments or rather brand experiences.

The textbook definition of Brand Experience is the totality of all sensations, feelings, thoughts, and actions evoked by a brand to generate brand affinity and loyalty. At Brand Lounge we look at a multidimensional ecosystem to brand experience through differentiation:

  • Purpose: The Soul differentiator
  • Innovation: The Radical differentiator
  • Culture: The Core differentiator
  • Image: The Shallow differentiator

Those dimensions are impacted by major shifts in customer behavior and trends that will be further witnessed during and post COVID-19 pandemic. It is thought that most likely those dimensions were going to be disrupted anyway even without a pandemic, which has only accelerated the change and the rate of adoption:

  1. PURPOSE AS MEANING & ACTION 

PURPOSE is going to become more vital for the success of any brand, if you stand for an idea bigger than making revenue, you will be more meaningful for the new-normal customer and employees.

For instance, Google’s purpose has always been to organize the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful. At the beginning of the pandemic, Google created a journalism emergency relief fund to support local and small newsrooms covering coronavirus.

Similarly, HP, which exists to create technology that makes life better for everyone, everywhere, used their 3D printing technology and machines to create vital products for medical workers and hospitals. (Ventilators, breathing filters, face shields, and innovations like plastic door handle adaptors for elbows to reduce the spread of the virus.)

2. INSPIRE WITH TRUTH

Your image should be a translation of who you are, it’s about walking and communicating your true purpose and maximizing brand value and meaning – this is why the McDonald’s creative communication campaign failed and received a lot of backlash from the market and why NIKE created great positive feedback with its ‘Play for the World’ communication that aimed at paying tribute to athletes training inside due to quarantine.

3. PEOPLE MORE THAN EVER

The culture of the new-normal is about leadership and values. How you support your core assets (People) in time of hardness will reflect on your business post the crisis.

Netflix Committed $100 million in relief fund for cast and crew members working on studio productions and all of its cast and crew have received two weeks full pay while productions shut down.

4. INNOVATION AS A MINDSET

Innovation is a mindset, it’s inspired by your purpose, your people’s willingness to change and react fast enough and your ability to uncover real needs that fit your readiness to experiment and your capabilities.

An engineer with Ajman University (AU) has come out with a smart robot that can remotely detect Covid-19 patients. A self-operating robot can be run via a remote control, while the data collected can be seen, and checked online all over the world.

5. PURPOSEFUL COLLABORATION

One element of expanding the purpose is to act selflessly for the greater good of humanity. Purposeful Collaboration is what customers/ consumers are expecting from responsible brands in general.

Apple and Google’s engineering teams have banded together to create a decentralized contact tracing tool that will help individuals determine whether they have been exposed to someone with COVID-19; hence moving from competition to collaboration.

These are some of the trends spotted and strategies that have been uncovered that are worth exploring and adopting during turbulent times and beyond. How will the future brand experience look like? This is yet to be shaped and defined. Brand Lounge is currently engaged in a large-scale research looking to gain insights and collect data from clients and prospects to understand their business and brand challenges in order to map the future customer and brand experience journey and help clients navigate their business safely in a new world order.