Brand value in a post-pandemic world

The most critical concept for business leaders, brands, marketers and PR professionals to understand right now is that the way they communicated with audiences two years ago will no longer achieve the same results as they used to.

Everything has changed. Everyone has changed. The pandemic, while it is still loping along, will eventually end. But the consensus is that it will taper off in the way the flu did, which is to say recede in urgency until it becomes a part of everyday life. Nothing will be like it was—but more fundamentally, our point of view as a global society has changed. As have our priorities.

Different things are now important to us.

As communications professionals we used to generally agree that consistent corporate communications, if aligned with a singular message or vision, would be enough to increase business objectives like share of voice, credibility and awareness. In a strange way, that’s all it took. Public Relations programs that were built around strategic corporate messaging would, indeed, move the needle.

But what has changed? Shouldn’t brands and companies still align messaging and vie for credibility and awareness in the marketplace? Sure. But it’s no longer enough to do so without purpose.