From scaremongering to sharemongering…Trybes Agency’s fascinating overview of the post-Corona consumer landscape
Photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash
We have long been in conversation with Alessia Clusini of the consumer research agency Trybes. We share an interest in festivals (see their reports, our coverage and posts) as new ways of building collective purpose in communities, through transformational experiences (think Burning Man). Though in terms of assembling in public, things are somewhat challenged at the moment…
So we were particularly fascinated to receive Alessia’s comprehensive report to her clients and constituencies, projecting consumer and audience trends to the end of the year. Really, who can know what lies ahead? But in straining to read the runes for potential commercial strategies, the Trybes report is a good insight into what our “New Normal” might look like.
We were delighted to be mentioned in her “how society and culture will change” section, and loved this quote from Neal Gorenflo, the founder of the US sharing economy site Shareable:
In the face of fear and great uncertainty, many people are rising to the challenge and safely reaching out to help others. The variety and scale of efforts is impressive. In the process, the call for social distancing is being reframed to physical distancing with social solidarity. And scaremongering turned into caremongering and sharemongering. This is leadership worth emulating. We may be physically apart, but we’re all in this together. It’s time to not only flatten the curve, but humanize it.
Other highlights include:
What products might work really well in the COVID 19 aftermatH
From the Trybes report:
E-mental health apps and mindfulness digital help
TeleHealth (doctors not taking face to face appointments with any patient)
E-learning and Self-education. Online learning for kids (here some examples of free subscriptions that companies are offering due to school closings)
New forms of exclusive insurance offered by companies: emergency/contingency services on a subscription basis (source)
Remote day-care (source)
Productivity services targeted to families — like Brain.fm to be able to work with a family in the same house
New services assisting travel and hospitality industries, such as deep clean services and single-use products, as an answer for customers demanding proof of cleanliness — especially in marketplaces like Airbnb and VRBO
Growth and implementation of food & groceries online orders and deliveries
Digital gyms (e.g. Tonal) plus streaming/on-demand fitness classes(Peloton, Mirror, but also local gyms)
All things YouTube subscriptions (expansion of a growing trend)
Online personal assistants growth
Online dating — obv led by Gen Z entrepreneurs, we’ll go back to that into our Young Audiences Digest soon
Meal kits (e.g. Blue Apron) and ghost kitchens growth
Larger real estate triggered by a longer than expected quarantine period
Home design/interior design that focus on rationalization of living rooms; cheap and well-designed workstation for small spaces
Smart home and connected indoor gardening systems
Durable goods and home appliances that allow families to have clean primary resources directly at home (water purifiers, air purifiers, domestic sanitation systems)
Coronavirus crisis showed Marijuana as ‘essential’ and mainstream, boosting an already growing trend and relaxing rules (the latter is proved to be really effective for expansion)
The Coronavirus has brought the dawn of the virtual happy hour — and companies like Campari and Diageo could learn from this, blurring the line between online and offline brand activations. I bet it’s a fast way to engage Gen Z using their own narrative
Again, this might feel stronger among Gen Z (and Millennials), but AR has reemerged as a hot product. For instance, Snap Camera has seen a 10x spike in downloads since the start of March, in what Bloomberg calls Digital Face Masks Boom. This, together with VR adoption, might be triggered by the expansion of our digital lives, and might stay rather than go back to what it was before.
In all this, the real, overall winner is Amazon, that managed to grow dramatically, scooping up entire markets which just weeks ago would have gone to brick and mortar stores, and yet repositioned itself as a public good, in what’s been defined as a mind-boggling image makeover.
Are our live events going to become virtual ones?
From the Trybes report:
…Take the lesson taught by F1 to sports events. As sports around the world were disrupted, Formula One drivers competed in the first-ever Virtual Grand Prix in history.
During the quarantine, sports leagues are looking for alternative means of holding competitions and engaging fans, and it’s fair to join the Morning Brew reflection in wondering: would fans go for baseball, basketball, or football pros playing the video game equivalent of their professional sport?
And would they enjoy additional virtual experiences with their favourite sports icons once th normality of live events is restored?
It’s obviously a big stretch to talk about substitution virtual-IRL, and definitely not what I’m going for here. But, having analysed the success of E-Sports and streaming live events among Gen Z audiences, I’m tempted to look at the future and consider any kind of combo scenarios.
We see a double effect happening in the fast learning process we’re experiencing now:
New practices bringing the offline, online (eg. bringing the Blockbuster movies straight to VOD)
Turning online experiences into truly participated events, learning from UG content such as “shared but remote” experiences all over the world (see the culture/society chapter that explores this in details)
On this note, a few examples that show this phenomenon:
Netflix parties: a Chrome plugin that lets friends have movie nights while being apart. Somebody already called it Quarantine and chill, what’s interesting is the social experience around video content.
JQBX: same sort of concept, for Spotify. During these days of social distancing, you could possibly become a DJ, a radio station programmer, spread your musical wisdom across the community or simply learn some fun facts about what’s being played around.
Less flexing and more mindful, intimate and relatable events and experiences with influencers and artists. See Lizzo’s mass meditationor Chris Martin, John Legend, Pink, and Bono intimate concerts (thanks to Martin Harbech for sharing them). As a result: the audience engagement is up and it feels a truly social place.
The socialization at scale in digital spaces is having an impact on gaming. We’re seeing a lot of people who have never touched a video game suddenly hanging out in Fortnite, adding one more reason behind the growth of the gaming industry in times of quarantine.
Alessia also urges us to read the work of media mogul Matthew Ball, particularly this essay - which asks whether the real post-Covid commercial opportunity is the Disney-like “theme park” model brought to an on-line gaming world. “Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox, GTA Online to a lesser extent, and Pokémon Go can be considered “digital park platforms” and teach us a lot in the aftermath of COVID 19”, she writes.
Ball also wrote an essay in January about what such a virtual “metaverse” would look like. It would:
Be persistent – which is to say, it never “resets” or “pauses” or “ends”, it just continues indefinitely
Be synchronous and live – even though pre-scheduled and self-contained events will happen, just as they do in “real life”, the Metaverse will be a living experience that exists consistently for everyone and in real time
Have no real cap to concurrent participations with an individual sense of “presence” – everyone can be a part of the Metaverse and participate in a specific event/place/activity together, at the same time and with individual agency
Be a fully functioning economy – individuals and businesses will be able to create, own, invest, sell, and be rewarded for an incredibly wide range of “work” that produces “value” that is recognized by others
Be an experience that spans both the digital and physical worlds, private and public networks/experiences, and open and closed platforms
Offer unprecedented interoperability of data, digital items/assets, content, and so on across each of these experiences – your “Counter-Strike” gun skin, for example, could also be used to decorate a gun in Fortnite, or be gifted to a friend on/through Facebook. Similarly, a car designed for Rocket League (or even for Porsche’s website) could be brought over to work in Roblox
Be populated by “content” and “experiences” created and operated by an incredibly wide range of contributors, some of whom are independent individuals, while others might be informally organized groups or commercially-focused enterprises
At all this, some readers may have a worrying image in their heads - that of Wade Watts from the film (and book) Ready Player One. The orphaned teenager lives in the slums, or 'Stacks', of Columbus, Ohio, 2045, and spends most of his waking hours (like the rest of his collapsing society) in the OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation):
Elsewhere in her report, Alessia hopes for the rise of “ecosystemic thinking” among the corporates and entrepreneurs she informs and guides:
the individual one, made of our body, our psychological level, our own centre
that of the ecosystem, which is widespread, systemic, ubiquitous, social, complex
Yet we have to ask the question. Wouldn’t this huge commercial and structural shift—to spending our time in a virtual metaverse, compelled by a newly lethal outside environment—indicate a kind of surrender to the worst tendencies of our climate crisis?
What should occupy our mindshare and attention? The realisation that it’s our rapacious, industrialised food system is the disruptive force that unleashed this bug, and will unleash more if not stopped (see blog earlier this week)? Or a simulated David Attenborough, trailing us through digital jungles that are disappearing in reality?
Manifestly good actions to help people, not “Corona Marketing” newsletters sent to in-boxes, is Alessia’s constant injunction to the businesses that are her audience here. We appreciate these extraordinary prognostications. But we’re wondering where the line falls between some of these innovations in technology, culture and organisation being empowerments, or exploitations, of the general post-Corona society? Let’s observe, and respond.