This is an excerpt from a post first published on Medium.com on May 28, 2020. by Kelli, founder of The Change Project. It has been reposted here for ease of sharing.
Life, to put it mildly, has changed.
State by state, county by county and city by city, citizens…consumers…are quite literally emerging from their residences into a new reality. Our shell-shocked economy is wrestling with what’s next and product and brand managers are considering the new realities of their customers. This will clearly take time but if there’s one thing we know for sure, stress will be a major driver for products, brands and experiences for the foreseeable future.
Is it really that bad? Yes. 20% of the U.S. population filed for unemployment in the last two and a half months. Personal safety and financial security are a near distant memory for most. We are now learning to live with a stress for which there is no playbook. The ‘old’ stress looks like mere anxiety compared to the ‘new’ stress.
The new stress carries life or death choices with every step out the front door — for every race, for every culture. The economic plundering will have deep and lasting effects on education. The healthcare system will be deeply affected — again. This new stress will become a lens for how we see the world and our futures, and how we take care of ourselves and our families. Our filters for minimizing the impact and for outright daily relief will need to come in many forms. Product developers and brand managers need to understand the many layers for how this new stress is going will play out for their customers all over the world.
At the obvious level, retail has changed. The evolving guidelines for living with the virus (while the search is on for a vaccine) creates a unique environment for, also evolving, daily stress. How consumers shop and maintain their lifestyles will require new protocols and new frames of reference. New habits will be formed driven by ramifications of deadly proportions and survivalist instincts. We have not dealt with something of this magnitude in modern day history. In a consumer-driven society, how will brands, technology, and products help us feel safe and achieve a new sense of normal when “normal” seems to be behind us?
Humans are social creatures. Centuries of eating together, celebrating, and simply passing the time in public spaces will not disappear overnight. Barbershops, nail salons, gyms, cafe’s, basketball courts, shopping centers, bars and restaurants — all of these locations have been stress relievers in their own right. When we go back to these experiences and services, how do we engage? Where does our stress relief come from now?
At an entirely different level, life has taken on a slower pace and deeper meaning. In fact for some, there has also been some relief in “The Great Pause”. It has forced a re-examination and enjoyment of smaller picture, day-to-day activities. Relationships have become more meaningful. Mealtime, cooking, family entertainment, weekend enjoyment with more intimate groups of family and friends has removed our attention from the “next big thing”. Forced elimination of sports, music, TV production and other national past times has forced us to look inward, removing the inclinations of “gotta have it”/“gotta be there” and for now has shifted our value sets to more simple needs and wants. These too are opportunities.
Meanwhile the aftermath of all of this is a national population that is now significantly underemployed. A downward drop in consumer spending will reflect new circumstances, needs and wants. It’s not necessarily time for brands to come racing out of the gate to try to stimulate consumer demand, but it’s a great time to check back in with customers to try to understand where attitudes have shifted. And where stress can be alleviated.
In 2003, I did one of the most fascinating pieces of national qualitative research I have ever had the great fortune to be a part of. Project Zeitgeist, planned for nearly a year prior and in no way meant to ride the back of war, happened to coincide with the week that the U.S. invaded Iraq. This too was an inflection point in U.S. history and our findings across all age groups, ethnicities and regions were extraordinary and suprisingly pivotal for the company who commissioned the work.
Now is the time to invest in listening. Use this time to hear your customers and connect with them. For marketers this doesn’t mean simply rushing out the empathy bandwagon but also taking the time to listen to consumer concerns. If you’re a product manager, make an effort to understand the many layers where stress is impacting your customers’ lives and what this might mean for new needs, feature sets, updates or line extensions. If you’re a brand manager, listen for how significantly your customers’ lifestyle perceptions and behavior shifts may be influencing their relationship with your brand.
Above all else, be gentle, be kind. We all need it right now.
Image Source: @engin akyurt, unsplash.com