The Long, Staggered Journey Back To Kinda-Sorta Normalcy
Start stop start stop: The Neal Ungerleider Newsletter #82
So here’s the thing: We're slowly making our way into the post-pandemic world. There are much better people than me to talk about what this means for society at large.
But let's hone in on what it means for advertising/marketing/media. I think--I think--I'm qualified to talk about that.
The root problem? The end of COVID won't be a on/off switch. It will be a very, very glitchy dimmer switch that works differently in different places and different industries. Especially for mass communications.
Generally speaking, different industries work on different timelines. Conventions/trade shows, motion pictures, theme parks, tv commercials, digital advertising, print mags, you name it... they all have their own timelines for planning, dealmaking and execution. This makes long-term planning massively frustrating in pandemic times when any sort of certainty or predictability is at a premium.
Some parts of the mass communications world are more flexible and generous when it comes to short term recalibration. Digital media, late night tv and mobile advertising are all in a better place for the long plod back to normalcy, as are some others.
And I'm just a simple country marketing consultant, not a doctor, but it sure as hell seems to me like we're headed to a situation in the US where COVID is still there but post-vaccine effects are milder, hospitals aren’t at risk of running out of ICU space and better therapeautics are available.
Knowing what I know of human nature (which isn't that much, but... hey! it's something), this is going to lead to a medium-term situation with some people ready to aggressively return to the old normal, others still extremely nervous about being around crowds and a big in-between.
We've been careening for years to a world where there's no shared narrative, with consensus reality differing *a lot* among individuals, and COVID's gonna accelerate that. What happens to the CESes of the world when some folks are panicking at the idea of spending days inside packed casinos and convention halls?
For one thing, a lot more mixed online/IRL events. Movie distribution disrupted forever, with more films going direct to streaming or online premieres. Streaming platforms will gain dominance even more. Advertisers will do even more online video, with the barriers between television advertising and internet advertising blurring nearly completely. Direct mail will have to cope with the fact that the United States Postal Service will be massively unreliable for at least the next six months, and probably even longer.
Anyway, who are we kidding? There's no going back to how it was pre-COVID. We're just going to have a weird and confusing new normal instead!
But the good news is that there’s lots of room to come up with smart solutions to the inevitable new problems we can't even imagine yet… and that some of these will be very, very profitable for their creators.
Love and coffee,
Neal
About This Newsletter: Neal Ungerleider is a strategic communications consultant who works with individuals, agencies and brands. He writes this weekly newsletter about the media communications industrial complex and hopes that you found it of use. Check out his bio, his portfolio, and current projects and interests .
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