Content, Corona and Communication – a triad that has changed the world as we had known till a couple of years back. Corona triggered the process of a revolutionary change in the process of content creation and communication.
From the graveyard of the Black Plague, the Renaissance had done the phoenix in Europe, they said, hastening to add that the Corona induced devastation too, and that might lead to fireworks. That the fireworks would be brought about by another war, pushing Europe and the world to the brink, was not what they had contemplated though.
That the world will emerge from the forced lock-down and the resultant economic hardships, learning to work from home, was what they had said. That, during the intervening period the smart corporate entities will embrace AI with a vengeance, rendering a substantial chunk of the workforce unemployed so fast was not what the experts had surmised.
That the Corona virus, in all its mutating avatars, will be de-fanged through vaccination was predicted, but that the virus itself was but a tiny manifestation of a much larger threat unleashed by global warming and climate change, is certainly not what we are even now, capable of understanding in the right context. That climate implosion is as real as every breath we take and that it has, perhaps, already gone way out of control, is something that cannot be brushed under the carpet of corporate profitability by cliches like Environmental Social Governance (ESG) is not even in the popular perception. Being in denial is naturally (no pun intended), not an option, is also not something that is making it to primetime with the seriousness it deserves.
“It will not be enough to know who the target audience is, or even what to tell them in what quantities, but it will become increasingly relevant to know where to find the right minds and how best to engage them. ”
Yes, economic distribution is already terribly skewed. The rich are becoming so rich that they are running out of pockets to fill. On the flip side, the poor are becoming so poor that in the history of mankind, there have never been so many hungry mouths to feed, so many who are desperately destitute. The chasm seems poised to continue widening. And it will naturally add to what is already, according to some at least, a hopeless situation.
Add to all this the fourth Industrial Revolution playing out in all its efficient magnificence. The wheels of science and technology have already set in motion the inevitable – the marriage of infotech and biotech. How it will play out, even in the near term, as the dust settles and the world picks itself up from the blows that were administered by the pandemic, is not immediately known. But what is known is that the effects will be nothing short of being unprecedented.
It is to this “new” world order that corporates will have to communicate. Hiding behind clichés will be passé. Coloured brochures and thinly veiled advertorial features in the media will not deliver the goodies anymore. In a world suffering from digital overwhelm, amateurish inserts with the sporadic wistfulness of the boss’s quirks will not carry any weight either. It will not be enough to know who the target audience is, or even what to tell them in what quantities, but it will become increasingly relevant to know where to find the right minds and how best to engage them. In short, the rules of communication will have to be reinvented and the content will have to be honed to create soul connects that sell in mediums, that, in their ubiquity, will pose challenges that neither mere algorithms nor untutored mindscapes will be able to manipulate. Leave alone the traditional PR guy who used his good offices to plug unidimensional panegyrics.
The world can get only more cynical from here onwards. Godforsaken, socio-economically challenged, ideologically sterile, digitally destitute, threatened by artificial intelligence and faced with extreme climatic conditions, most men will have little else to look forward to. And it is to him and his ilk that the corporates will have to communicate. It is his eyeballs and mind-space that the communication campaigns will be waged for.
And you thought it is all about uploading the Press Release in your Facebook page? That too, without even a semblance of Content Cranking? Think about it.
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