What Shanghai’s lockdown easing means | WARC | The Feed

What Shanghai’s lockdown easing means

As Shanghai continues to ease its lockdown, two local agency strategy officers take stock of the city’s experience and suggest what this might mean for brands.

Why it matters

Shanghai’s population has suffered during the recent lockdown, but people have not been concerned so much about catching the disease as they have been about such things as lack of food, lack of access to medical care, lack of contact with friends and neighbours. “There’s a lot of opportunities for brands to play in those territories,” Henry Shen, chief strategy officer for McCann Health China, told the Shanghai Zhan podcast. 

Possible post-lockdown scenarios 

• People’s responses will differ: a ‘carpe diem’ approach for some could contrast with a conservative one that sees younger consumers preparing for more such eventualities. Overstocking is a possible outcome (as is evidenced by a recent surge in refrigerator and freezer sales across the country).
• There may be a re-evaluation of priorities. “Many people in Shanghai used to live a luxury life, but now it’s about living with what you have, rather than what you don’t,” says Shen.
• There’s a new sense of community emerging as people talk to and share with their neighbours in a way that never used to happen. Group buying, for example, is on the rise, according to Arjun Paul Vendanayagam, strategy director at Ogilvy Shanghai.
• Mental health and wellbeing will become a greater focus for consumers and brands will need to respond accordingly, taking account of both the reactive angle (managing the after-effects) and the proactive (e.g. tips on how to live with the situation).

Sourced from Campaign Asia [Image: Pexels]