We're bound to rebound

“Like a rubber ball I come bouncing back to you” – Bobby Vee, 1961

“An increasing sense of expectation isn’t enough – brands need to stay ahead of the bounce back or they’ll drop the ball”

Most scenarios expect a commercial rebound by October 2020 or the beginning of 2021 at the latest.

Whilst business and society have been fighting to adapt to the unprecedented changes imposed upon them by authorities striving to contain the pandemic, we’re also hearing that brands are now focussing their forward-facing strategy on planning for what comes next.

We spoke in a previous post about “Thrive, Strive, Survive”,  but as the UK Government begins to unfurl the Covid contingency businesses are positioning on what the next chapter looks like, how will consumers respond and how they need to evolve themselves to rebuild or retain their sales.

Both retailers and brands are accelerating eCommerce and re-thinking how they connect with consumers. Through Lockdown businesses like Aldi and Heinz have “parcelled” their products to retain manageable supply chains and also ensure they keep their brands front and centre within their markets, but the model isn’t profitable and so they are thinking how digital commerce fits with marketing and logistics as the market slowly emerges from it’s enforced hibernation.

Brands have recognised the need to drive their direct to consumer strategies both in terms of communication but also how they create sustainable supply chains. Consolidated customer experience is absolutely critical to build this D2C opportunity. Covid has moved us all back to 1 large weekly shop and away from the “daily top-ups”, but who wants to order every item we need individually. The big challenge is how we connect we understand and create customer experiences that resonate, it comes down to who we know and what we know about them. If customer data was a valuable asset prior to the Covid-19 crisis, in the aftermath this data’s potential value is rising exponentially. For the foreseeable future, there’s no such thing as ‘business as usual’ for affected businesses as the implications of lockdowns, social distancing and the economic fallout unfold

FMCG brands need to fully embrace the way data, commerce and content blend to create engaging and pragmatic experiences in a world, that whilst trying to return to a version of normality, will remain in a socially distancing status. The rebound is coming but are you ready to “catch the ball” because dropping it could be a catastrophe.