How’s work going? No really, how is it? Those of us lucky enough to be working are doing so solely online; no analogue meetings or face to face catch ups. Just the promise of seeing colleagues and client faces beamed out from small boxes on screen.

Perhaps you're juggling home-schooling with working from home, trying to explain to your colleagues why you can’t be in back to back meetings all afternoon when your youngest has to be tuned into Microsoft Teams, and hasn’t yet figured out the merits of the mute button.

Maybe you’ve moved back in with parents or your parents have moved in with you. Or you are navigating the crisis alone. However, you’re operating, this is very much business unusual. 

Thankfully, this lockdown is bringing out the best in collaborative attitudes across the industry, with leaders sharing ideas and best practice with one another and the wider world. Whether it’s how to navigate a virtual pitch or the best technology to use when hosting your first virtual event our highly competitive industry is embracing collaboration.

With this collaboration in mind we have pulled together some of the best agency insight papers providing guidance, support and reassurance during this ongoing crisis.

Welcome to business unusual

The world we find ourselves in looks nothing like that which we left behind, and we are only a month into lockdown. We now know what our colleagues’ kitchens look like and have probably been witness to a gate-crashing child or two. But how are you supporting your staff? ENGINE believes that now is the time for businesses to step up and show empathetic support to your workforce; to put people first. The agency has also provided a few top tips about how to work successfully in an agile way, particularly as it becomes increasingly difficult to plan, prioritise and deliver work.

Wax/On’s Co-Founder and Planning Partner Mark Runacus pulled together his top ten things you can do right now, collated from what the agency has learnt over the last month, both through co-hosting the Wax/Lyrical podcast and pouring over up to date research. Runacus welcomes us to Business Unusual, as he deems it, believing that while it shouldn’t be about spend, spend, spend, brands should not stop communicating; they must continue to be relevant.

In the midst of lockdown media consumption patterns are shifting every day, away from OOH and cinema and towards the screens in our pockets and in our living rooms. AIP have outlined what the media buying landscape might look like over the next few months, examining smart media buying and the channels experiencing an uplift in a world under lockdown.

When brand experiences go virtual

Customer experience is an area that has experienced sharp growth in recent years, as it has become increasingly important for consumers to document everything they see, do, eat or wear. People want to have experiences but, perhaps more than that, they want to be seen having those experiences via social media,

So, how best to give people what they want in a world that is playing, and consuming, almost exclusively online? How do you keep the key element of human interaction when it has moved from the physical world to the virtual? Momentum have created a video that offers their five key rules for virtual events, from designing content specifically for a digital environment to ensuring that the best aspects of a physical experience are combined with the breadth that digital experiences offers.

In the midst of lockdown, a growing number of businesses are realising that evolution is key. Proximity London believe that it is now time to examine what the new normal looks like when it comes to customer experiences. Whether that’s helping brands negotiate the new challenges they face or how they can help people to feel positive during this crisis, the agency’s advice centres on the importance of people.

Shifting social behaviour

From figuring out the merits of a good backdrop to maintaining a cautious distance from the multitude of Instagram Lives taking place at all hours of the day, our online world is ever expanding. And nowhere has this been felt more keenly than on social media.

Media Bounty conducted a range of social listening to better understand consumer behaviour in the lockdown. The most important thing, the agency believes, is that brands should offer people a service and, more vitally, understand their role in society. Listening to and engaging with what your consumers want has never been more important as brands must respond to short term challenges, but also plan for the long term.

As brands are leaning more on the media we can consume from home, influencer marketing has once again been thrust into the spotlight. The Corner believe that there is no need to stifle creativity in the current climate; there just needs to be an appropriate conduit for it. And this, the agency believes, is influencer marketing.

The way we shop is changing

With all physical stores besides grocery stores and pharmacies closed for the near future, the way we shop has drastically changed over the last few months. Consumers purchasing habits have shifted, and Impero have offered advice on how to adapt to new market realities. The agency has drawn on evidence from the past to form a conclusion about how advertising might be affected in the future, whether that’s with real-time content creation, the drinks industry or how the world of fashion is winning over Gen Z.

The ever-present role of commerce in our lives was already prevalent but the current global lockdown has only heightened this. Geometry has explored this trend in the world of commerce, and how brands can best navigate it. Because, as the agency explains, it is vital that brands retain positive relationships with their consumers that don’t just last the duration of the lockdown but continue more long term as well. 

Short term gain, long term pain

The current global lockdown won’t last forever. And so, while brand behaviour short term is important, it’s how businesses prepare for the long term that will be vital to survival.

With this in mind BBH London have offered their advice on how best to protect your brand, or as they have outlined, how brands can stay trading, stay helpful and emerge strong on the other side. MSQ Partners have looked to China for their advice, examining what the UK market can learn from a country just beginning to emerge from lockdown.

Wild Card examines the food and drink sector to highlight why it is critical that brands are strengthening relationships and defining their next level of customer value. Looking forward, the agency wonders whether the swift behavioural change we’re seeing take place during the current crisis can carry forwards. They ask whether that might lead to the big picture changes we know are necessary.

And of course, there is the ongoing conversation around diversity and inclusion, that is perhaps more important than ever to continue during a period where it could be in danger of being eclipsed. As we all work remotely and businesses shift accordingly, could this be the catalyst for the adoption of broader ways of flexible working? ENGINE certainly hopes so as they ask, could coronavirus be the catalyst that ends women’s inequality? Only time will tell but the more conversations we can have about it, the more we ensure the issue is front of mind and, hopefully, that will lead to positive change down the line.