A New Subscription Brandscape

Subscription retail – an ideal counter to rising brand promiscuity during hard times –  boomed during lockdown. This was thanks to the comforting predictability of regular deliveries, the perceived generosity of lower prices, and membership retailing’s capacity to accentuate a sense of belonging. Now, success will depend on cost savings combined with personalisation and richness of experience (including flagships). We reveal the loyalty-locking frontrunners.

Supportive Automation

Trading on the desire to spend less, reduce stress and reclaim a sense of control painfully absent during the pandemic, budget-savvy digital concepts rooted in clever product-tracking automation (but where users set perimeters and make key choices) have a new halo. From fashion to finance, mediating the rollercoaster of ‘spender sprees vs. retail remorse’ means extra wins. 

Mainstreaming Re-Commerce

Not just for luxury brands (see Gateways to Luxe), recommerce (rentals and resales) presents a major value-add with mainstream brands via digital and in-store concepts. Key tactics include bestowing a sense of outsmarting the status quo, providing opportunities for ‘thrift flipping’, catering to young home renters, and overcoming professional stasis. 

Shareconomics: Digi-Retail Community Co-ops

Echoing strategy in Leaning into Local, brand-backed digital co-operatives rose in popularity during the pandemic by empowering neighbourhoods to unite to get better deals while supporting one another. It’s a grocery-centric genre swelling in Asia, but with global promise – particularly for concepts switching faceless, Groupon-style positioning for network-centred community support and, increasingly, female empowerment.  

Ads: Frugal Meets Meaningful Messaging

According to Nightingale, successfully marketing to cash-strapped post-pandemic consumers means “approaching frugality from a sense of achievement, not […] addressing bad luck”. Astute brands and agencies are making consumers feel good via campaigns that hero intelligent spending, mastering new skills, and – a key genre – conflating eco credibility and mindful consumption with having less.

Less is More Media: Budget-Beating Influencers

A new wave of social media influencers are offering a potent sense of solidarity by filling gaps in consumers’ financial education, and adding kudos to budget life hacks. From money management (micro) moguls, to frugal foodies and ‘thrift-flipping’ fashionistas, many of these online thought-leaders are supporting the women, minorities and young people worst hit by Covid-19.