Consumers relationships with brands have changed.

Whilst they are happy to actively engage with brands, they expect something in return. They expect them to care about the issues that are important to them, campaign for change or support those that need it. So being a brand that stands for something has never been more important.

And there is nothing more important that people’s health.

The impact of COVID has shone a worrying light on the health of our nation and the benefits of being healthier have never been more crucial, yet never more challenging, with organised sport disrupted, venues closed and events cancelled.

During the first lockdown, in my very little world of East Finchley, North London I was really pleased to see so many people pounding the streets, clogging up the roads with bikes and families using their hour for fresh air to play football.

But the stats recently put out by Sport England show that this wasn’t representative across the country. The number of people inactive rose by 3.4m to 13.8m compared to this same period last year.

This really shows that a huge effort is going to be needed to make meaningful change to our lifestyles and habits. The Government has made it clear that it intends to get the nation more active, and a big health kick is coming, but they can’t do it on their own. 

If we think about the importance of brands standing up, currently there is nothing more prominent and meaningful than helping us to get active and healthy!

So to support, we have created a proposition to help brands do just that - Driving Healthy Lifestyles

The framework, provides an overview of the opportunity for brands work alongside Government and illustrates how to make it into an impactful consumer facing campaign.

In the proposition we outline our Mind, Heart and Body approach:

MIND: We ensure that business and consumer insights lead the planning.
HEART: We identify the common ground between stakeholder and consumer priorities.
BODY: Finally create a consumer facing campaign that drives meaningful action.

As consumers demand brands to stand for something, what better issue to stand for than being part of the solution to COVID and helping consumers enrich their lives with being more active.