Collective Displacement

What does collective displacement look like? Think working from your home instead of your office, shopping online instead of at your favorite store, streaming a yoga class instead of heading to your local studio, and hovering over your children as they watch their teachers online instead of in a classroom.

The global pandemic has displaced how and where we work, learn, shop and play—and even where we live. We've broken this collective displacement into three categories: place, activity and communal displacement. Place displacement includes the shift from office work to working remotely, as well as moving to a new home (whether you're working there or not.)

Relocation was a common global theme in 2020, with more people leaving densely packed cities from Paris¹ to Manilla² for less crowded environs in the countryside. Emerging hand-in-hand with place displacement, activity displacement is simply about the change in how people do things.

Almost overnight, school lessons, doctors’ appointments and even weddings were online. And last but not least, community displacement changed the make-up of the people around us. Communal gatherings—like concerts and sporting events—were replaced with solo acts or small groups gathered in households, in pods or virtually.

Collective displacement has had a monumental impact on people’s behaviors, and many companies must now face the fact that the customers they knew so well have changed.

It will take new solutions for companies to deliver experiences away from the physical spaces where customers and brands previously interacted. And with an innovation mindset, it’s possible to do so safely. A powerful example is the virtual store launched from Shanghai luxury art mall K11, which enables people to tour and purchase from 46 different stores via WeChat.³

As companies explore new brand experiences, there are immediate challenges to consider. First, brands must understand how information-gathering has changed. Those that relied on exposure stemming from customers' long-established behavior patterns — namely, people physically traveling from place to place—need to look at ways to become more visible.

Second, brands must address the fact that shopping has atomized into many micro moments spread throughout the day and across devices. Social media will be the prompt for many of these moments, and it will likely influence whether or not people buy.

Third, they must replicate or replace physical touch using digital. In some cases, investing in detailed copy will help give people what they need to make a decision.

Finally, brands must look for ways to deliver joy through immersive approaches. Recreating out-of-home experiences in the home with new devices, for instance, lets brands bring a bit of magic to the normal ecommerce platform.