Shifting Communications Going Image

Evolving Communications in a Post-Pandemic World

As we have seen over the past few months, the world is transforming in ways that are impossible to fully predict. But in the midst of any transformation, opportunities emerge to strip away what was no longer serving its function and replace it with something better.

The post-pandemic world will undoubtedly look very different from the one we left behind in March 2020, but there is no saying that the world we step into cannot be the one we have always envisioned. The voices that businesses project into this changed environment will have to accommodate this shift. Even before the pandemic, business communications began to focus less on making money and more on highlighting the faces and social purpose behind the organization. That shift has developed at warp-speed in response to the pandemic. How can business communications evolve further for the post-pandemic world?

According to behavioral science and the CDC’s “Psychology of a Crisis,” humans desire greater transparency and guidance in response to a crisis. (Breck has written a three-part series on crisis communications as well.) An organization’s communications strategy can offer the care, authenticity, and purpose that audiences look for after a period of profound uncertainty. There are five things that crisis communicators tend to do well that businesses can co-opt for their post-pandemic communications mindset:

  • Give people what they need, when they need it.
  • Communicate clearly, simply, and frequently.
  • Choose candor over charisma.
  • Revitalize resilience.
  • Distill meaning from the chaos.

With these ideas in mind, organizations can begin to consider how they might reshape their brand as a whole. Four major thematic communications shifts will be necessary for brands to survive and thrive once the pandemic has finally abated:

  1. Embrace greater corporate responsibility or the notion that there is more substance to capitalism than making money. Address how your organization is supporting real people and how you are helping to solve the problems created by the pandemic. Make it known how you are supporting your employees or community. Ralph Lauren, for example, whose brand promotes the dream for a better life, is producing masks and gowns for front-line and healthcare workers.
  2. Explain what your company believes in and why you are in business in the first place; stay away from sharing how well your company is performing. According to a WE communications study, 83% of audiences expect brands to take a stand on important issues that drive a positive impact for the world, their communities, and their customers. In a post-pandemic world, audiences will want to see how organizations are associating their brands with the greater good of society.
  3. Highlight the accelerating use of technology in your business place. Be specific about what kinds of technologies are being used, how they are being used, and why. Explain what technologies your organization is investing in that improve products and services for your customers and stakeholders. The post-pandemic world will have a greater focus on risk assessment and your brand should be prepared to address how you are using high-tech tools in innovative ways to overcome these new challenges. In one example, Best Buy, whose purpose is to enrich lives through technology, entered the healthcare market and has deployed tech to help aging seniors live longer at home. These are specific examples of corporations taking responsibility to support the lives of real people in response to the pandemic.
  4. Re-assess your organization’s strategic positioning. In recent months, many companies have re-assessed their long-term business strategies and investments. Contemplate how your organization can prioritize the “blue ocean strategy,” or the creation of something distinct from anything else on the market, as opposed to the “red ocean,” which is characterized by “bloody” competition. The post-pandemic world affords opportunities for innovation—seize them.

Moving into a post-pandemic world, brands will need to change the tone of communications to be more sensitive and less self-serving. After a period so intensely focused on survival, the need for unification and broad support has become all the more apparent. Organizations have a role to play in communicating to these natural human desires and a role in helping shape the world we hope to live in, one that is safer, healthier, kinder, and more transparent.