Branding in times of apocalypse

Pablo Vázquez, Managing Partner at Collaborabrands

We live in times when uncertainty is reaching levels that are already beyond toxic and are beginning to be lethal. Just when it seems that the desired recovery is coming another blow: this time not in the form of another pandemic wave but of a wave of Russian convoys in Ukraine and waves of Ukrainian refugees in Europe.

Perhaps foresight thinkingcould have foreseen future scenarios like the one we are living in today, but we were more aware of Tik Tok, the metaverse and the latest hit Korean series on Netflix. Incisively, it can’t be said that the Koreans didn’t warn us: their hits “Hellbound” and ” All of Us Are Dead”, which have already been renewed for a second season, clearly showed us where we were going. That’s the thing about being a neighbour of Kim Jong-un, until recently the only autocrat to threaten to use his nuclear trigger.  Now we have another one closer.

The apocalypse came and it caught us working on Mondays (another meme that has become popular in networks).  This exhausting coexistence with historical events that were almost unthinkable not even 3 years ago, makes us exhausted; physically and mentally exhausted.  Suddenly – not so suddenly – mental health has become a mainstreamtopic. The suicide rate is no longer taboo, and we are surprised to see that it is four times the rate of deaths due to traffic accidents.

So what are brands doing?  Wunderman Thompson’s 100 Trends for 2022 report published in January pointed to an escapist line with euphoric ads that could serve as a counterbalance to the difficult times we face and Dreamvertising, using science as a support, where brands aim to guide our dreams (and they do not refer to our ambitions but to our dream activity).

Escape is legitimate, but reality can also be confronted. 

Brands can – must – address these adverse realities.  Our Brand disappointment study (available for download on our website) shows that 90% of Spaniards believe that brands should be more committed to social issues. And today, making people feel better, soothing, comforting are actions that brands need to think about in order to be more relevant. The battle for attention is being fought more than ever in the field of relevance.  And it is relevance that, above all other considerations, guarantees a lasting connection with the brand. Discovering how brands can make people feel better and thus be of more value to them is the great challenge of the coming years. And at Collaborabrands we are happy, despite this “apocalypse”, to work towards it.

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