As humanity entered the 2020’s, COVID-19 took center stage. Sweeping across the world in a matter of months it wreaked havoc on the global economy and sent marketers into a tailspin. All of a sudden, the old world of business and marketing exited stage left and the new world order entered from the right. For months, and even now, the world simply stopped making sense.
This made it very difficult for marketers to navigate, and a variety of ill-conceived plans began to form. Some immediately began by celebrating frontline workers through their brand mascots, which was a tacky approach. Others capitalized on the shift and pushed their online and delivery services to new heights, usually at the expense of those unable or unwilling to adapt to the digital reckoning. Then there were those who became paralyzed like a deer in the headlights, fearing their demise and yet unable to look away. The response across the industry has been less than stellar. Marketers simply lost the plot. They no longer understood what consumers needed from their brands. Old patterns became broken and nothing stayed consistent as the world changed rapidly from day to day.
However, the one thing that has remained consistent across age, sex and culture is a genuine fear of dying. This fear has led to the complete paralysis of societies in every corner of the globe. COVID-19 reminded people that the risk of dying is around every corner and while highly unlikely, death is a real possibility.
A simple restaurant visit, shopping trip, or even an e-commerce delivery could contain a life altering disease. Again, based on the reported infection numbers this is still a highly unlikely possibility, but the damage is done. Politicians and health officials have fed the average consumer with a significant dosage of fear and the damage to the consumer psyche is in full swing. Even with a vaccine, the fear of a morphed or possible new and more deadly virus will remain in the collective conscious throughout our foreseeable future.
So, what is a marketer to do in this altered state of reality? I propose that in order to navigate this global realization of the fragility that is humanity, marketers are going to need to shift their focus from wants, needs and desires to focus squarely to existentialism.
Yes, this is the rise of Existential Marketing
We are now in an era of marketing that must become cognizant of the fact that people are now, and into the foreseeable future, permanently scarred by their experience with COVID-19. As a society we are now, in some way or another, defined by our collective experience and the way in which our governments handled the crisis. We, as a people, are more aware of our mortality now more than at any other point in our history.
Communicating a genuine sense of understanding and compassion will be paramount for marketers over the next year and decade. Every ad, social post, blog, video etc. will need to be very carefully thought through to ensure that it does not violate the consumer’s fragile sense of importance and existence. Any challenge to this could bring up subconscious fear, anger, frustration and sadness that they may not have even realised was there. We are, as a species, forever changed in ways we don’t yet fully understand.
As such, Existential Marketing does not seek to answer these questions of importance, relevance and purpose, but rather seeks to provide understanding and reflection to those it advertises to. For example, when concert venues finally regain the ability to open, likely after an effective vaccine has been widely administered, the promoters and venues will need to work with attendees to create a sense of safety, security and rebuild the trust that large social gatherings would have lost over the previous year or two. Simply showing ads of crowds jumping to music packed shoulder to shoulder was the old way. Now, marketers will need to take a second look and figure out how to manage the existential questions and fears people have developed and match those with their desire to get back to normal and live a free and healthy life once again.
Concert venues aren’t alone. Pubs, clubs, retail stores, tourist attractions, cruise ships, airlines etc. will all be facing similar challenges. Before consumers rush back to these activities, they will ask themselves the simple question of “What is my risk of dying?” They likely won’t ask this question directly, but rather some pre-version like “Will I catch something?” “Will I spread something” “Will people judge me?” “Is it clean enough?” etc. Fear is humanity’s most primal emotion and as of the year 2020, it has been fully activated.
Over the past decade experiential marketing brought humans together by creating unique and engaging spaces for consumers to interact and engage with each other. In a matter of months COVID-19 stripped that away. Over the coming years Existential Marketing will be the path that brings consumers back by recognizing our primal fear and celebrating it in a way that has never really been approached in marketing before.
What is Next?
To be totally honest, I don’t know exactly how Existential Marketing will evolve. I do know that Generation Z is tapped into their emotions in a real and raw way that I, as a Millennial, can’t even fathom. This will be a big part of it. I think it is the young marketers who probably already know that we can no longer separate the self from the brands that we buy from. They have likely already begun incorporating Existential Marketing into their programs, quite possibly without even realizing it. It is now our jobs to identify it, understand it and begin folding Existential Marketing into our next decade of plans.
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Article Written by:
Dean Horsfield
Founder of Little Bear in the Forest | Digital Marketing Agency
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