Give People Virtual Ways to Feel Free and Unfettered

Americans have been cooped up for months, and it looks like a gradual, safe reopening of the country won’t be much relief. Going out won’t feel quite as liberating as it did before Covid-19. Where’s the joy of dining in a half-empty restaurant, served by a masked and surgically gloved waiter? Or standing in six-foot queues for hours waiting for your chance to spend 2.5 minutes with one of Monet’s Water Lilies at the Met? And movies—what will be scarier: the blow-em-up chase scenes, or the guy coughing into his mask behind you?

Yes, it looks like we’re going to feel constrained for quite a while. And while real freedom may be months away, we can plan for it, and experience it now vicariously. That’s where savvy marketing comes in. Help people imagine what life is going to be like again when this is all over. Your brand doesn’t need to offer freedom; it just needs to be associated with it.

Take Rice-A-Roni, that San Francisco treat. What’s going to make it more appealing for another stay-at-home meal: the sight of it steaming on a plate next to some crispy baked chicken thighs and glistening buttered carrots, or the thrill of riding, with 50 strangers, on a cable car up Nob Hill? Clang! Clang! Clang!

Or banks, looking to sell home equity loans—do you show that beautiful, empty designer kitchen you can afford now, or fill it with dozens of people at a dinner party?

B2B? Imagine scenes of people happy to be back in an open-plan office, leaning over cubicle dividers to see the latest software on Zack’s computer.

Kids clothes? It’s the fall, and they’re getting on the school bus and leaving the house for the whole day.

And what says freedom better to Americans than hosting a brat-grilling, beer-swilling tailgate party out of the back of a new pickup truck? The party might only be with two friends with proven antibodies, but we can imagine a crowd, can’t we?

We’re getting through this, but it will be a long, slow slog back to normalcy. A taste of freedom, with a little humor, will go a long way to lift our spirits. Brands that do that will be our new best friends.

If you’re starting to think about how your brand can be part of the reopening of America, give us a call—thoughtful humor has always been one of our strong suits here at The Gate. And maybe we put masks on everyone on that cable car, just to be safe?