The past two years have set a new playbook with constantly changing rules for brands and people across the globe. Yet, one thing that cannot be ruled over is people’s emotions. One of the emotions that have dominated the world in the past two years was grief – the emotion brands are not talking about enough.
The main reason for grief? Loss – across all areas of life.
Ever since the rise of the pandemic in early 2020, the world has been struggling to cope with loss. According to the WHO, the pandemic took the lives of more than five million people around the world in just two years, each of whom had had relatives and friends, co-workers, and neighbors. All these people have at least partially experienced the loss of someone in their lives. And it’s not only the loss of deceased loved ones, but also the loss of people who remained in our lives but we couldn’t see due to numerous lockdowns. The sudden and continuous inability to see others in person led many to mourn their favorite people even though they were still just a couple of blocks away.
The loss of their preexisting work life has had people grieving their established work routines, their interaction with coworkers, and the overall workplace culture. Many people started questioning the new meaning of work in their lives as a whole. Besides work, people in many countries lost their common ways of entertainment and relaxation. Two years since the start, we are still canceling vacations last minute and postponing celebrations to an indefinite time in the future.
Learning to let go is an essential part of being an adult, but when we talk about it, we often mean letting go of one thing at a time. How do we cope with losing a thing in all aspects of life all at once over and over again?
The impact grief has on people
Even with this brief overview of the amount of loss the world has experienced in the past years, we can’t help but feel the tremendous effect it has on everyone’s lives. We are still continuously grieving our life as we knew it. Any time we get a break, the world shatters under another virus variant. Glimpses of hope and what we previously called “normality” are quickly darkened by new phases of uncertainty and restrictions. People have been continuously losing their overall sense of security and safety and instead many replaced it with a sense of helplessness and grief.
This never-ending cycle amounts to a feeling of prolonged grief, which doesn’t lessen with time. People who are commonly affected by stress feel the effect even deeper, leading to a compound phenomenon that therapists call “grief upon grief”. It is no surprise then that therapists warn for a massive PTSD wave in the next few years.
Millions and millions of people living in this world are grieving. Think of them. Who is addressing that audience?
How can grief affect your brand?
Companies’ behavior during these times is crucial for their image in the long run, both by clients and employees. Experts say what companies do today will be remembered for years ahead. The higher stress, sensitivity, and need for certainty are strengthening the effect of every action a company does.
What you do today will determine your brand state in the next years.
A result of poor company reaction not only to people’s rational expectations but to their emotions as well – in terms of human resources – could lead to the loss of employees who feel neglected, misunderstood, or pressured, which leads to higher turnover and higher costs for recruitment and retention. All this could end in a harmed company culture and poor brand perception among potential candidates. Moreover, grief has a direct financial impact, too. Grief has been estimated to cost companies up to $75 billion in losses related to productivity. People are there but not really, thus creating a culture of absenteeism. And this calculation was done almost a decade before the pandemic. Imagine the losses now, when the whole world is experiencing grief a second year in a row. So unless your company does something about your employees’ grief, you will continue losing money.
The same goes for your clients, as well. When the political and societal systems seem to be ineffective in taking care of people’s lives, people turn to businesses. People expect businesses to take a stand. They hope to see understanding. Not only on purchase-related topics but on life as a whole.
Loyal clients keep an eye on their favorite brands and their presence across channels now more than ever. They follow companies’ activities way beyond its public communication – they know their favorite brand’s internal culture and people policies, too. Any lack of integrity will quickly be noticed and could lead to long-lasting harm for the brand and its performance.
Besides increasing sadness and weaker business results, however, grief has the potential to soften people, too. It has a soothing effect on the ego and thus makes people more connected to themselves. Grief gives us permission to slow down, relax, and hear our emotions. It creates a direct path to our tender selves. If allowed the space, it creates a gateway to people’s hearts.
This moment of grief creates a very fruitful opportunity for brands to connect to their people, while they are in this softer state.
Brands’ reactions to grief
Traditionally, for-profit companies do not have a reputation of being experts in feelings. Since the business world is built mostly on rationality, feelings and emotions are not very welcome there. Instead, they have been considered a sign of weakness. This is why when it comes to the world’s grief in the past years, companies have mostly mentioned the business impact of the situation. They either neglect the emotional aspect of the topic or barely scratch it and then distract with other topics, trying to focus on the good.
Brands prefer to inspire positive emotions in people with their activities and content – to create excitement, pleasure, fun, love, joy, and laughter. Grief is not anywhere near the desired emotions brands want to provoke in their target audience and be associated with. Yet, it has been among the dominant feelings of the past two years.
Don’t get me wrong – nobody prefers feeling bad to feeling good. Nobody likes receiving additional stimuli of low vibes, especially when their days are already melancholic. We seek to distract ourselves from them exactly with light-hearted and positive content. We need it to emerge back on the surface from the depths of sadness. Yet, when the information we perceive is overly positive, it might create an opposite effect and instead of making people feel lighter, it can deepen their sadness and leave a sense of bitterness. Such brand content becomes inappropriate to the external circumstances and to people’s inner state. Some may even feel pressured – like the world is not giving them a place to feel their grief but keeps demanding. It is as if brands are telling them, “nothing so dramatic happened there, life goes on, get going, keep doing”, thus increasing their anxiety and grief.
When in a state of grief, however, people connect more easily to thoughts about loss, especially if they have not yet overcome the feelings the loss has created. In those moments, the sight of something overly positive and desirable, might increase the sense of loss – the human mind subconsciously evaluates the item or experience portrayed as yet another thing they don’t have. As if they are already in a state of loss in relation to every new thing they see.
The case is similar when it comes to employer brand activities – when a brand pushes people into an overly happy environment when they are grieving, it creates a state of shock, followed by disgust and resentment. The aim of the brand to create a desire in the target persona towards a product or a service is not achieved. The expected desire is replaced by increased grief towards the lack of possession of that product or service. The attempt to create a happy work environment is ignored or even worse – despised.
Psychotherapists say the only way to overcome an emotion is to go through it and grow through it. Avoiding grief would not make it go away. It is healed only when people let themselves feel it. And brands could be helpers in this process.
Yet, this does not mean to transform all your brand presence through the prism of people’s grief as this might be inappropriate as well. It might make people feel even more vulnerable and frightened. Moreover, some products and services have no cross-point with the territory of grief. Such a drastic turn might seem insincere and even devastating for the brand. Yet, the road to people’s hearts always goes through their emotional state.
So how do you make that connection successfully?
How can your brand connect to people when they grieve?
The best thing brands can do in these times is to show understanding and acknowledge people’s grief. Becoming the entertainers and explorers who help people get into their joyful moods might not be the best role in people’s lives right now. If this is the role your brand is traditionally taking, pause on the excitement and instead take up a more relaxed approach. Look for ways to create a deeper personal connection with your audience. Substitute explosive stimuli with more mellow ones. Show care. Work for helping people see the safety in security in your brand that they are missing in their world. When a brand shows an understanding of their grief, people are more likely to consider it authentic and close to them. This is the best way to create a sense of belonging in your audience and increase their loyalty. When a brand shows it understands people in good and in bad, it inspires a feeling of trust.
A brand that is with its people in good and in bad, is a brand that can be trusted.
In these times it is important to remember that success comes in the balance. Just like people, brands are tested in hard times. And it is the brands that consider all aspects of their presence that make it through. The brands that will keep people’s trust and gain even bigger interest are those that take a more human approach.
Balance the mix of light-hearted and deeper emotions
Don’t push it too far with the smiling families and couples, as no family these days looks like it. Try to bring in more sincerity, pay attention to the anxiety that has become people’s new best friend, the loneliness people feel today even when they are together, the tension in their interactions burdened by the feeling of grief for the past and fear of the future.
Acknowledge the grief without judgement or remorse
It is important that brands approach the topic out of pure heart not out of duty. The authenticity can be shown by simply providing the space for people to feel their feelings. Slow down. Lower expectations towards people in and outside the company. Be kind and show patience. Let grief soften everyone in your brand’s surroundings.
Take people on a journey to heal and emerge from the grief
Only once you have provided some emptiness to people, can you start filling it with new activities and content. Work inside out. Think of your brand’s specific view on grief and develop resources on it. Provide training and tools on dealing with grief to team leaders and managers. Think of bereavement support and grief counseling as an employee benefit – it doesn’t sound cool but it’s the support people need most these days. Provide support to survivors with deceased family members. Dare to talk about grief privately and publicly.
Show that your brand cares for its people.
Remember that whether it comes to employer branding or marketing presence, your brand is one. So, in order to create an authentic connection with people in these times, your brand should consider its activities holistically. This time of grief is a great opportunity to merge the boundaries between the internal and external brand presence and build a strong community. Employees, clients, partners… We are all people, after all.
Cover image source: Charles Etoroma