Love

Great, collective challenges are coming thick and fast: public health; human rights, environmental. They leave no one unaffected.

Love, by which we mean togetherness with kindness, is the ultimate growth platform because it connects with our desire to face these great challenges with shared spirit, optimism and more assurance.

We’ve seen mass expressions of gratitude to frontline workers; multiple acts of local volunteering and kindness; retailers and service providers step up for the over 70s; and global ‘Balcony Spirit’, an outpouring of connection that illustrates how people very quickly prioritised human relationship in times of isolation.

Just one example of this is ‘Shopping Angels’, a Facebook network launched by pre-med students in Nevada during COVID 19 that delivers food to high-risk people.

The programme went viral and was expanded to all 50 states as well as Canada and Australia with over 7,000 volunteers.

Individuals and companies have risen to the human needs of Covid-19; accompanied by a sudden, widespread re-focus on neighbourly care.

This is a good thing, but will it last?

Maybe.

In May, the ONS reported that 67% of UK people expect a kinder Britain to emerge after Covid-19 (4). Time will tell as to whether these expectations have been met.

However, for now, this has been a collective, human response to a great challenge. But as the challenge subsides (assuming it does!), will this neighbourly love fall away, reverting to more selfish ways as ‘normal service’ resumes?

Or will the experience leave a lasting impact, having witnessed and participated in a mass re-set; having experienced ‘better’. Will we desire and demand to hold on to it?

Our belief at this point is that this ‘awakening’, while manifesting less urgently, will still leave its mark. Our yearning for kinder, more neighbourly, more loving interactions has been piqued.

We’re in tumultuous times; Covid-19; Brexit; Hong Kong; Me Too; Migrant Crisis; Black Lives Matter; Global wildfires.

Our take: the continued challenges of Public Health; Human Rights; Climate Catastrophe will endure.

In this context, people’s need and appetite for love, genuine togetherness and kindness, will stay. And they will respond to those who lead with these qualities – people; organisations; companies; brands.

Opportunities for brands:

- Selling with love: Think about your whole value chain (or love chain!). How are your people; suppliers; customers; sales teams; agency partners etc. creating a love chain around your brand and business that will bring and keep customers, that will future proof your true value.

- Say it & do it: Proclaim your love, celebrate the concept and prove it through action. This is what is now called for from brands.

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