By Nancy Gulati
The Corona epidemic becomes an intensive time. One learns interesting things about how people perceive themselves and the world around them.
We are in uncharted territory. As COVID-19 continues its spread across the world, many brands still find themselves not knowing exactly what to do. Many are confused and are virtually walking on eggshells. Questions abound on whether releasing an article or social content will be seen as opportunistic or be perceived as virtue-signalling. And while a lot of brands would rather err on the side of caution, many are also diving head-first into coronavirus-related content, sometimes with disastrous and cringe-worthy results.
Beyond the cases of Rajput and Irrfan, the news of the everyday is lifeless. You could substitute reports and hardly recognise the difference. Analysts I talked to brought a further twist to the argument. They listed that the change is not political but technological. “Newspapers”, they claimed, “were mourning the death of print and announcing the real birth of the digital.”
The new society has to be online.” I admit, as an old addict of print, that I was shocked. I only get up in the morning because of filter coffee and a sheaf of newspapers. Print defined a sense of the social, and now analysts were declaring life begins online.
Lockdown and COVID 19 has made life as living in the challenging times, it is changed the whole equation, with live events coming to an end, it is time to reset and reinvent the wheel, the scary part is .. without shows the money has also come to a standstill, but the live artist don’t want this to put them down. A lot of them have started to collaborate create and innovate. And thus GOING DIGITAL is the new normal.
The online transition has not made it easy. It has made it even more challenging. Now is the time to raise the bar. The recent GWI Coronavirus Research done in April 2020 reports that 87% are spending significantly more time on their smartphones and 50% through their laptops. The data is nothing short of fascinating: 17% are creating and uploading videos on YouTube, TikTok, and other platforms, 64% are spending more time on social media, 52% are on messaging apps like WhatsApp, Viber, Messenger, and others, and 64% are watching more shows and films on streaming services such as Netflix, HBO GO, and more. 69% said they are watching more videos on YouTube as well.
Brands just need to see how their values can shine at a time when people’s concerns have been refined to security, safety, and health.