How creativity prevails in a crisis
In times of extreme uncertainty and constraints, businesses must embrace creative solutions not just to survive, but to thrive.
Every day, I’m inspired by the brilliant ways that people around the world have come up with to meet the challenges of COVID-19.
3D printing hobbyists are rallying to help coronavirus patients breathe. Teachers continue to engage and educate their students with virtual field trips. Communities, families and couples are keeping love alive in different ways.
As a design strategist, I’m interested in how businesses are responding to these times with optimism and ingenuity. I believe a crisis is often the much-needed catalyst for organisational innovation. Companies are forced to adapt or die. Because as the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.
Here are some ways I’m seeing businesses apply creativity to shape their customer experience in this pandemic. Hopefully it can inspire you to apply it within your businesses or organisations.
Explore new ways to deliver value
With social distancing and the importance of #StayHome, some businesses have had to close their doors or stop face-to-face interactions with customers. How will you rethink your channels so that customers can still have access to your products and services?
Perhaps we can learn from Airbnb. Its Experiences platform lets travelers book tours and events with local experts. As the travel and hospitality industry takes a massive hit with COVID-19, Airbnb brings its travel experiences online, so travel lovers can still attend virtual tours from the safety and comfort of their own home.
Tap onto opportunities to make digital more human
With more people practicing social distancing and staying at home, the human touch is more important than ever. Peloton added profile tags to its digital offering, enabling users to form and join communities around tags based on their interests.
Find innovative methods to reward customer loyalty
Even though the world’s most popular furniture company has closed its stores in response to COVID-19, it didn’t want to disappoint fans of its world-famous meatballs too. That’s why it published its recipe, so loyal customers can duplicate the dish at home.
Use this chance to reposition yourself in the marketplace
Pornhub shifted its perception from that of a taboo brand to one that supports people in a time of need, by offering free access to their content for a month and donating proceeds from its content marketplace.
Contribute to the fight
What can a premier luxury brand do for regular folks? A lot, apparently. Louis Vuitton has reopened their ready-to-wear atelier in their headquarters in Paris specifically to craft a desperately needed medical staple. These hospitality gowns are being made for frontline workers at six hospitals in Paris, who are taking care of COVID-19 patients.
Creativity turns setbacks into opportunities.
A crisis amplifies the scale of our problems, pushes them in our face, and forces us to accelerate long overdue change with a laser-like focus.
It makes it impossible for us to be complacent any longer. But you don’t have to see this as a challenge. It’s an opportunity. History has shown that some of the greatest businesses are born out of hardship or difficulties.
Hopefully my post has given you some thought starters for leading the change within your organisation. I’d love to chat, email (nicholas@common.cc), or whatever way you’re happy to contact me. Especially if you have any questions, or would like to share your experiences. Does your business have a creative response to this crisis? I’d love to hear it.
