Don't settle for a 'new normal'​ when we can do better.

What marketers can do about it and how Lou Reed might help.

Everyone’s trotting out the phrase – new normal. Opium for the masses I fear. A phrase loaded with promise and devoid of meaning. I doubt there’s a common view on what it means. For instance, what does new mean in this context – experienced for the first time? I doubt it.

I expect many will accept the new normal as ‘exactly like we had before please’, particularly those who were reaping disproportionate rewards. Our human desire for stability and familiarity can be overwhelming. So what we had before the Covid-19 crisis probably will feel better than this. But what we accepted as normal has already been forgotten.

The NHS and social care in crisis, inequalities in access to health, education and training services. Undervalued and consequently underpaid workers, now called heroes (perhaps to absolve guilt as much as a recognition of their service). A reliance on people prepared to work at minimum wage or lower (we all know it happens) doing jobs we don’t value anymore – until we have to fly them back after suggesting we didn’t need them. Gridlock in many of our cities, poisoning our children. A third of children living in poverty according to the Children's Society. A widening gap in healthy life expectancy between socio-economic groups. Even evidence of a reduction in life expectancy for some. 

And of course the biggest challenge of all looming before us – the man-made climate crisis. Understandably it’s slipped off the news agenda, but the deadline for carbon reduction hasn’t changed. That clock is still ticking.

Too political? How about this then.

In marketing-land and advertising-world, normal was social platforms (Ad platforms being another name) accused of being negligent in the publishing of dangerous content, like self-harm. Algorithms serving content to keep people on the platforms at all costs, no doubt to prove their advertising value. One cost being the loss of common sense, another possibly democracy. Unintended consequences of bringing people together around the world without consensus on what we value.

Mental health tanking – ‘Agency PRs have highest stress levels and 21% have a mental health condition’ according to the CIPR State of PR research, as reported in The Drum April 2019. Or ‘...92% of people in agencies have suffered with mental well-being, compared to 62% of the wider population’ The Drum August 2019. Has that normal been dealt with?

Diversity and inclusivity aren’t faring much better – 'a disappointing decline in adland's BAME representation’ according to Campaign May 2020. Clearly not been dealt with.

Work-for-the-awards-shows (be honest, you know it happens), build fast and sell with no respect for culture, people or planet. Value extraction rather than value creation.

In a R4 interview on 5th May 2020, Hugh Merriman MP posed the question "...will people return to normality when it’s safe to do so…return to being consumers?" No Hugh, I hope not!

I get it, he’s got legitimate concerns about his constituents, but I bet it’s what the majority mean by the new normal. We’ll take what we had and everything that went with it. 

Language betrays underlying attitudes. Surely we’ve learnt that people are more than consumers, that most pitiful of words to describe a human being, and the word most frequently used by marketers. Only yesterday thousands of these consumers were heroes!

If we settle for the new normal being the old normal we’re selling ourselves so far short it’s frightening. And we’ve only got ourselves to blame.

Why settle for a ‘new normal’ when we can do better?

"You’re gonna reap just what you sow…"

This is one of the finest lines written by Lou Reed. He’d probably heard it before somewhere, maybe the synagogue, but that only reinforces its prescience.

The recent loss of some freedoms has meant other things have been found. Cleaner air, birdsong and for many, family. "A time to reflect on what matters and what doesn’t" as one globe-trotting university lecturer told me.

If marketers think this has got little to do with them and everything to do with politics then they’re wrong. Unless they don’t actually believe in the power they wield.

“Advertising is such a huge, powerful industry because we have the responsibility and the power to change behavior...” said Mira Kaddoura founder of Portland based Red & Co in AdAge March 2020. “I don’t know anything, other than religion maybe, that has that power. There’s so much money behind this industry. I feel I have a responsibility to use that money towards something that actually moves the world forward.” 

Whether producing communications for the Government, brands, start ups or education – marketers are sharing some sort of vision, creating some form of saleability. An ideal where the product or service plays a part in the lives of real people. Lives we are reflecting…or defining.

What do we value? What have we learnt?

This crisis is a horror, but something amazing, of real human value could materialise. Out of the horror of WW2 came the one thing the British cherish above all else – the NHS. So it can be done.

Diversity and inclusivity are wrapped up in this. The reason we’re engaged in these initiatives is because it’s right and fair and, when done authentically, reflects society, and might even lead it.

"Our brands have the power to influence culture and shape the inclusive world we want to see tomorrow" said Jane Wakely of Mars Incorporated on WFA in April 2020.

“You’re gonna reap just what you sow…”

Millions of people have been re-evaluating. What is important? What do I/we care about? How can we keep those things, as well as a job and an acceptably burgeoning economy?

Marketers could grasp some of the big opportunities this crisis has identified. The value of time spent with children, partners, parents and friends – even virtually. The real value of those doing the jobs we wouldn’t. The value of cleaner air, of birdsong, of trees, of thinking.

We value our skills as innovators, problem solvers, communicators – presenting an idea or vision and engaging people around it. So we shouldn’t lose this opportunity for brands and marketers to embrace what's been learned and deliver – better.

And if we don’t create one statement project like the NHS, maybe it’s loads of smaller interventions in employment, training, diversity, inclusivity – practices that add up to something valuable.

Marketers have allowed, were complicit in, or actively supported a society where value was misplaced. A failure to accept some responsibility is futile. The public don’t trust advertisers anyway and the Kantar Dimensions report in 2019 said they’re feeling increasingly ‘bombarded and saturated’. I doubt that’s what any of us set out to achieve. So not that normal please.

I’m hoping for a better normal – as lucky as I am, in the South West, in this country and on this continent.

“You’re gonna reap just what you sow…”

So normal better be better. Otherwise we’ve learnt nothing and care even less.

After completing this post a friend sent me this quote by poet and activist Sonya Renee Taylor. I felt less lonely.

"We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return, my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature."

Thanks.

Onwards to a better normal.

First published on Linked In.