One of the quotations that I’ve seen that most sums up what is going on during the COVID-19 pandemic is attributed to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and was said just before the last big pandemic (Spanish Flu). To paraphrase, he said “that sometimes nothing happens for decades but then in a few weeks decades happen” which is a great summary of what we are seeing in terms of social, technological and commercial (especially retail) trends.
But there is another quotation which to me is equally important in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic and we have to go back much further than Lenin for that one. In ancient Greece one of the holiest sites was the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, home of the famous Oracle. What is fascinating here (to me at least) is that the inscription above the door, before it fell down, read ‘Know Thyself’ – not ‘honour the gods’ or anything like that, but ‘know thyself’.
That’s good advice to anybody. But it’s great advice when you consider it in relation to brands living through COVID-19. Know what you stand for as a brand, know where you want to go, and also, critically, know your customers. The latter point being especially important given that their attitudes, behaviours and needs have had decades of accelerated change over the last 18 months.
It’s critical now for brands to re-establish and revisit the foundations of their customer understanding. Does the accepted consumer dogma of two years or even a year ago still hold true? What are the long term vs short term changes? And how do brands need to adapt to match this evolved market?
I think there are three, interlinked, things we need to do to build that understanding
- segment the market – it’s a different world now so can we really trust a segmentation from 2 years ago to be valid? Now is the right time to start a new segmentation journey
- understand behaviour – treat established markets as if one was moving into a new product category. Conduct in-depth qualitative longitudinal studies to really understand the now and future of what people do
- get closer to customers – literally talk to customers and listen to them more; we need to challenge the truisms and dogmas we all have – so we need to do this by using empathy as well as facts. Customer closeness initiatives really help here to embed the seismic changes we’re seeing in the heart of the organisation.
I think these are immensely interesting times to be working in the insight business, either in agency or client roles – and knowing our customers will be critical to get through them successfully.
Alex Johnston, Aug 21
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English (United States)