Welcome to Crisis: Population You

It’s time for marketers to help ease consumer anxiety and act ‘as a comforting blanket instead of a flashing siren.’

- Jason Alan Snyder

We’re living in a time pervaded by fear. On one side of the current election, there’s heavy conversation surrounding fear of immigrants, foreign powers, terrorism and the loss of what makes this country “great.” The other side doesn’t dispense that level of fear rhetoric, but they share a fair amount of social chatter about how it’s simply all over for our nation and our future if the opposition wins.

And while we may condemn the fear both sides generate, marketers have to ask themselves what role they’ve played in setting the stage for this sort of national discussion. To what degree has our industry pushed for fear—and what can we do to turn things around?

We have to acknowledge that as marketers, we have enabled, even encouraged, a persistent state of panic. And as a society, the technologies we are adopting are exaggerating this condition. I’m not saying it’s right; I’m also not saying it’s avoidable. This line of thinking is not an analysis of “crisis culture,” or acceptance of it as a permanent state of being. Rather, we’re acknowledging that crisis culture in marketing is real and pervasive.

But I want to make clear that brands should genuinely help improve people’s lives in the culture, despite the culture we have historically chosen to foster. This Means War (because everything means war).