Winter is coming. It seems like whether you watched Game of Thrones or not, you’re familiar with this line signalling the impending doom of the winter months. For the characters in the TV show it meant years of endless snow and biting winds, not to mention the odd zombie. For us, it might spell something a little less fearsome, but nevertheless there’s anxiety around the next few months. Something only made worse by coronavirus.

Yet there’s no reason why your winter can’t be more koselig: a Norwegian term which means cosiness, but more than that, the sense of finding comfort; a lifestyle. Let’s look at the work of health psychologist Kari Leibowitz who produced a study of the Norwegian town of Tromsø, where the polar night affords its residents only two to three hours of indirect sunlight. Leibowitz wanted to find out why its residents were so relentlessly positive about life during this time. Especially when every TV episode or film, from The Simpsons to The X-Files, tells us cabins, isolation and bad weather don’t make a good mix.

Leibowitz’s study has gained greater significance after a recent Guardian article which talked about how her learnings might help those countries outside of the far north reappraise their opinion of winter. Koselig is at the heart of how Tromsø residents get by. 

Perhaps if we’re to learn from Tromsø not just to guide our evenings and weekends through the winter months, but our work days too, it would be helpful to look at how it embraces community. As Professor Joar Vittersø, Leibowitz’s collaborator, told the Guardian, “There is this interaction between the culture that you’re part of, and the mentality or mindset that grows out of it.”

Instead of going it alone, Tromsø residents engage with their community to ensure it burns bright even if the sun does not. If you’re to take something away from this article, aside from the validation of the value of hot chocolate and blankets, then it’s the importance of community during these hard times. Your marketing teams, your customers, and more specifically, your agencies.

Making the most of what you have

We’ve heard from some agencies that during coronavirus they’ve felt they need to be more proactive. It might seem a harsh verdict on their performance during a pandemic, but remember it’s creativity which is the lifeblood of agencies. 

They’ve talked about how it’s their responsibility to help brands through this time. How they can help it pivot, recalibrate, etc. to ensure the brand’s activity doesn’t go dark during this time. From our Creativebrief Explores series, there was an overwhelming championing of collaboration. To some, the brand-agency partnership might seem a little lopsided - too often, agencies are still called suppliers - but 2020 seems to have evened things out. Brands like Oreo, WaterWipes, HUN Wine, Persil, Haribo and more are seeing the benefits of a solid and trusting partnership to keep them going.

It’s imperative that you don’t just sit back and wait for your agency to send you a list of ideas though. What was also very clear from our event series was the fact that these agencies knew their ideas would at the least be listened to. Transparency and trust are vital any time of the year, but when you want the biggest and best creativity off your agencies, you need to ensure they feel open to presenting. It’s not just about being bold, or having guts; it’s about knowing you’ll listen.

So engage with your agencies, invite them into the circle to share what they think. Make the ideation of your next piece of work a little more koselig.

Don’t forget what’s happening

Leibowitz said that her Tromsø study would not cure all our anxieties about the pandemic. “A change in mindset is not a cure-all for everything,” she explained, saying how there are things happening in the context of coronavirus that simply need healing and empathy, not escapism.

Remember this with your agencies and don’t forget what’s going on beyond the Zoom call. Coronavirus shouldn’t hold us back, but it’s amplified the scale of things that might be happening outside of people’s work lives. Retain your empathy and ensure your agency teams are delivering work when they can. 

The timelines on most of the pivoted campaigns we’ve seen have been eye-wateringly quick. 24 hours, 48 hours. That’s because the period has been so reactionary. The rules and restrictions on lockdown life changed every other day, whilst we all now wait with baited breath to see what’s announced. The pace of things might make it seem like you have to hustle your agency for the work immediately, but talk to them about what’s possible. Think too about your methods of communication. We’ve heard from Tati Lindenberg from Persil about how conversations over What’s App helped introduce a ‘lack of formality’ into their campaign’s ideation. Have pity on teams that are doubtlessly going through overcommunication too and think about keeping a Zoom call to the decision makers and not every man and his dog.

We’ve seen campaigns produced at lightning speed because an agency knew the idea would need that turnaround to work. We’ve not heard once that the brand demanded it arrive for a meeting the following morning. During this time of uncertainty and pressure, the trust you place in your agency teams on what they create and when they create it is even more essential than ever. Communicate and manage expectations from both sides. Agree what’s possible and when it comes to getting it out there, don’t just think about speed but timing too. Look at how HUN Wine perfectly matched their campaign to the tone of the moment. The work you produce now isn’t just about speed. It’s far more about hitting its mark with the consumer. Haste won’t help that. 

The need to remain empathetic with your agency means more now than it perhaps ever will.

Brush up on your agencies
 

There is a saying in Norway, “There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.” Far from sitting under a stack of blankets, or not moving too far from the wood burner, Tromsø residents embrace outdoor socialising, open-air cinemas, lamp-lit walks in the snow. Whilst this might be a stretch where you live, the importance of staying in touch with people is key.

We spoke before about how this is a time for reflection for brands. Refining your marketing strategy, or pivoting it entirely. But it’s also an opportunity to get to know the agency landscape. It’s a bugbear of the industry that brands aren’t at grips with agencies enough. It’s a confusing landscape of course, and we understand that brands aren’t twiddling their thumbs for lack of things to do.

But getting to know them now is not only more of a possibility as a period of reset continues, but also a more compelling need. Whether your strategy has scaled up, your brands needs have changed, or if they’ve just increased in urgency, your personnel and skill sets will require change too. But don’t jump in and decide you need all new agencies. First, get to know the ones you have. Get to grips with the people there, the ethos, the agency brand; their point of view on the world and what they can bring to the table. This way lies the path to unlocking new and exciting ways of writing your own future beyond coronavirus.

And don’t just do this with your existing roster. Dig into the many agencies you’ve maybe remarked the work of, but simply haven’t had the time to get to know. On our platform, we encourage agencies to tell their stories in their own way so it reaches you the brand rich in their ethos and brand. Pour over case studies, profiles, insights, new work, and get to know them more than ever before.

Leibowitz is adamant how important the mindset is when it comes to the people of Tromsø. And she says that once you begin to listen to it, to learn from it, you have control over your own mindset. As she says, “I think that that’s tremendously powerful.” So yes, winter IS coming. But forget about the zombies, and instead embrace the agency comfort. Or rather byrå koselig. Get to know your agencies, work on those relationships, create extraordinary work, and the sun might come up again sooner than you think.