Zig when the world zags.

Published 14th April 2020 by Chris Dell

At a time when we're all being encouraged to act as one ‘grounded’ herd, it may seem strange to suggest that we shouldn’t always follow the crowd. It may feel counter intuitive to ‘zig’ right now, and if it does, I suggest you at least challenge that feeling. Why?

At times of crisis, we know that it's often the inventive and the entrepreneurial who try something new, take the lead and come out the other side stronger. Or is this just historical hearsay?

Look how inventive our wonderful NHS has had to be in finding new solutions, often challenging internal conventions that have long been adhered to.

Look how Leon has managed to re-direct its business to help provide fresh food for the FeedNHS initiative. Saving jobs, helping people, building brand love.

Further afield, look how LVMH has turned its French fragrance production capability to now output hand sanitiser.

Now appears to be a good time for business to share what they are doing – how they are playing a part – without undue fuss or fanfare.

I'm reassured to see I am not alone in believing that now might be the best time to get back to communicating.

Edelmann’s latest Trust Barometer found that 65% of people believe how a brand responds to the COVID-19 pandemic will have a huge impact on their likelihood to buy that brand in the future. There’s the business case.

So, although closing off all non-essential expenditure seems to be the natural (and only) strategy to deploy to survive, perhaps the communications budget should be moved back into the ‘essential’ column if companies – B2B and B2C – want to come back strong.