Why brands should stop waiting and start doing?

When the oth­er side still seems far away, why should brands stop wait­ing and start doing? Let’s start with what we know. We know on-going glob­al events have cat­a­pult­ed brands into unchar­tered waters. We know con­sumers are increas­ing­ly look­ing to brands that are assum­ing a sol­id polit­i­cal, social or envi­ron­men­tal posi­tion and using cre­ativ­i­ty to bring this stance to life. We know in response to this brands have raised their hands and made pledges, in many ways step­ping up to become brand activists.

The inten­tion is clear, but how should brands go about deliv­er­ing on that promise, whether it be aid­ing the process of recov­ery, assum­ing the role of change-mak­ers, cre­at­ing new mod­els or trans­form­ing busi­ness for the long term?

Here are three obser­va­tions about the cur­rent state of play. At Lions we know the com­pa­nies that invest in cre­ativ­i­ty – those that actu­al­ly act – will emerge stronger. We’ve recent­ly gone through more than 65 years’ worth of Cannes Lions data from our intel­li­gence plat­form, The Work, to inter­ro­gate cre­ative pro­duced dur­ing pre­vi­ous reces­sions. As an exam­ple we’ve cal­cu­lat­ed in the 1980s brands that increased their ad spend saw sales which were 256 per cent high­er; on the flip­side we pre­dict brands that con­tin­ue to lie dor­mant will see a drop of ‑39 per cent in brand aware­ness.

We’re very for­tu­nate that we have a heli­copter view of the indus­try. Over the past six months we’ve spo­ken to glob­al brands, agen­cies, media own­ers and many oth­ers, and the breadth of approach­es to our cur­rent con­di­tion is both over­whelm­ing and inspir­ing. We’re now start­ing to see which approach­es aren’t hit­ting the mark and which are pay­ing off. For exam­ple, one theme is that it’s the peo­ple and busi­ness­es mak­ing deci­sions that car­ry per­ma­nence, rather than tem­po­rary acts of tran­sience, who will have a smoother ride.

From the var­i­ous approach­es being tak­en, it’s clear the more ener­gy a busi­ness pours into buy­ing stick­ing plas­ters, the less time they’re spend­ing on build­ing the future state: the plat­form, busi­ness, cul­ture and ethos that will under­pin it.

What we have right now is a one-off win­dow of oppor­tu­ni­ty. When do we usu­al­ly get the chance to hus­tle, inno­vate, take risks and get approval for that thing we’ve always been too afraid to do? Chipo­tle is a fan­tas­tic exam­ple of a brand that seizes oppor­tu­ni­ty, hav­ing respond­ed to shift­ing con­sumer behav­iour at speed dur­ing the pan­dem­ic; their com­pa­ny cul­ture believes in “always get­ting there first”. Dur­ing our pod­cast series, Progress Through Cre­ativ­i­ty, I asked chief mar­ket­ing offi­cer Chris Brandt what advice he would give brands that know they have to make a change. His response was sim­ple: “I don’t know how you can afford not to; you just have to start doing.”

Often we find crises accel­er­ate trends. One such trend we’ve pre­sent­ed at Lions Live this week, is that of low-fideli­ty (lo-fi) con­tent. It’s not new, but the pan­dem­ic has made lo-fi main­stream, fuelled by cre­ator plat­forms such as Tik­Tok and locked-down audi­ences in search of more mean­ing­ful emo­tion­al con­nec­tions. This under-designed aes­thet­ic that pur­pose­ly rejects high-spec con­tent has won favour as brands includ­ing Burg­er King, Reebok and Net­flix have all tried it. Now, I’m absolute­ly not say­ing we do away with beau­ti­ful crafts­man­ship, but in the spir­it of oppor­tu­ni­ty there’s no rea­son why the two approach­es can’t com­ple­ment each oth­er and work in tan­dem.

Spoil­er alert: the “new nor­mal” isn’t com­ing; it’s here. It’s every­day and it’s the brands and busi­ness­es which dive in and invest in cre­ativ­i­ty and the future, seize the oppor­tu­ni­ty and start doing that will live to tell the tale on the oth­er side. Time to do the thing you’ve always want­ed to.