In today’s new abnormal, content strategies require authenticity, compassion and the agility to adjust tactics
All the non-essentials are watching, tweeting or zooming about “The Tiger King”, Netflix’s newest hit docuseries about an eccentric, self-destructive zoo owner named Joe Exotic who ends up in Federal prison for, among other sordid transgressions, breeding and selling endangered exotic cats. The bizarre tale has become the self-fulfilling, binge-worthy distraction of a nation starting to feel trapped in its own cage. With 80% of the country now in lockdown, essential and non-essential personnel are expressing confusion, frustration and, in more recent days, feelings of grief.
Google Trends reports that the search phrase “coronavirus money help” surged 3600% this week. Hopeful hashtags such as “#StayHomeStaySafe” compete for attention with sentiments like “#Guillotine2020” as celebrity backlashes mount. Photos of the one percent quarantining on their yachts compound feelings of helplessness for a population scoring high on Cigna’s “Loneliness Index”.
Content Essentials
As the virus spread in its early days, well-intentioned personal email messages from CEOs felt inspirational – a steady hand with a concerned heart struck the right chord. By the 50th boiler-plated message in your inbox, it looked transparent. So too with creative attempts to re-design logos in support of social distancing, which was appropriate for a few weeks when marketers rightfully rallied to flatten the curve. As death totals rose and projections skyrocketed, everyone took a collective gulp to focus on another new reality: You either celebrate, support, or fund the essentials or you create distraction content for the non-essentials. Both kinds of content play an important role, but one does have a higher calling. And while the dichotomy feels reductive, it clarifies a brand’s participation in the marketplace of ideas.
We’re All Generation Z Now
Generation Z is known for its 24/7 technology addiction, playing online videos games to exhaustion, working the social media networks for social justice, and sometimes making fun of elders with macabre COVID-19 memes like the too-soon-for-comfort #BoomerRemover. Generational barbs aside, the point is that most of us are caged indoors, and the only option is to mimic the ones who’ve already mastered the lifestyle of “screen-time surrender”.
“We’re consuming so much information all day constantly at a rate that humans have never really consumed information before,” said Gen Z’er Andy McCune, co-founder of Unfold, to Glossy, an online fashion magazine in an article about Gen Z before the pandemic. “We have so many people who are trying to reach us every minute of every day.” McCune added that marketers need to capture his generation’s attention in less than eight seconds.
Bread and Circuses
Without our typical supply of bread and circuses, Gen Z behaviors will satisfice our real need for distractions. eSports, short-form video, low-fidelity user-generated content, memes, and hashtags (#FormalFriday anyone?) have become cross-generational channel strategies to reach the non-essentials. According to Tubular, a social media analytics firm, social video consumption is rapidly changing. With daily routines disrupted, the company’s recent report, “Covid-19_ know what the world is watching”, highlighted that video content focused on topics like at-home workouts and room-makeovers are up more than 80% since the outbreak.
While real sports content has gone to zero, Tubular noted that demand for it has stayed high. In response, companies are re-packaging their back catalogs for a newer generation’s format, and desperately turning to eSports. This weekend will feature a televised video basketball tournament played by real NBA players on ESPN and ESPN2 using the NBA2K video game.
Fox Sports reported that its inaugural eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series race on March 22nd drew 903,000 viewers, making it the highest-rated esports TV program to date. FS1 aired its first-ever Fox Esports Madden NFL Invitational on March 29th. The two-hour event pitted former players against each other in a single-elimination, three-round video game tournament.
Brace for Impact
In less than a month we’ve gone from being told not to wear masks to being told in recent days that masks can be an effective way to stop the transmission of COVID-19. That’s a big, radical change (#masks4All) that marketers can support in order to help lessen the stigma around it. Required behavioral changes like this one will shock the system and impact our cultural psyche.
It’s almost as jarring as if a fast-food company were to give away instructions to make its hamburgers at home! But maybe that’s not such a bad idea. Brands that act selflessly now will be remembered fondly when, finally, we make it to the other side of the curve.
