Last week ITV Media continued its series of brand positive webinars by asking the question: How will consumers respond when the lockdown is eased, and what will this mean for brands? A sense of hope is starting to ignite and people are starting to look at what's coming next.
The whole world has gone through ‘life in flux’, exhausting feelings of fear, denial, and confusion and slowly we’ve seen ourselves adjusting to this new normal. Kate Waters, Director of Client Strategy & Planning at ITV Media, says the next stage is ‘over the rainbow’ as we begin to hope and start to plan for the future.
So what is over the rainbow? Will Tapp, Strategy Controller at Google, says many brands need to analyse what will happen to consumer demand and what advertising can do to help.
Lucy Trotty, Culture Insight & Strategy lead at ITV Media, recognises there’s currently a pent-up demand to get out there and spend again which means there’s likely to be a bounce back. The marketing challenge at the moment however is how to stimulate demand now. Brands need to keep the momentum and steer for the future.
Desire is still present, so how can brands start to build anticipation? Lucy talks around capitalising on the opportunity to play on people’s pent up desire. For example, adapting the generic ‘I can’t wait for my first xxxx’ to individuals brands.
It feels great that there is a sense of moving away from fear as we start to feel hope and plan to look ahead. And in light of this positivity, we asked our Creativebrief community what ‘first’ has got them bursting with anticipation:
It’s hard to imagine what going back to normal will look like, but it’s still vital to plan for the future. Whether it’s a strategic plan for your brand or which hotel you’ll be booking in Bali. This webinar recognises there's an upcoming window of time that well-prepared brands will benefit from. And although it seems hard at the moment, investing now could really pay back over the next few years.
