Scroll to discover
Finding Magic in the New Normal
Finding
Magic
in
the
New
Normal
Senior Client Manager and Strategist
Let’s call a spade a spade: 2020 was a
tough year.
We saw natural disasters on unprecedented
scales, societal issues erupt around the
world, a global pandemic, questionable
politicians, and the cessation of almost all
leisure travel, as well as a complete
restructuring of the way we live and work.
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the root
cause of it all has become the mainstay of
almost every (virtual) conversation we have.
Without even mentioning it, you know
exactly what we mean.
We set ourselves the goal of finding
examples of digital magic that not only
helped people through 2020 but also where
it took a clear turn for the better. Things like
the unexpected relief a video call could
provide for besieged parents suddenly
working from home, or the health and
wellness shift from the gym to the living
room. We even explored the benefits that
playing video games could bring to people
who suddenly found themselves confined
to their homes and isolated from their loved
ones.
So, shall we leave the tough conversations
to those paid to talk about them, and find a
little magic instead?
Digital daycare to the rescue
It’s true! Although we surely all agree that
tools like Zoom and Google Meet have
become taxing parts of our daily lives, it
can’t be denied that they have their
benefits. Especially when they’re wrangled
into clever ways keeping children occupied
for even a few hours a day.
For Vox Media, this was a daily story time
that was implemented in March 2020. For a
few hours a day, Vox employees could sit
their kids in front of Zoom and have them
entertained with something as simple as a
book. Even Vox CEO Jim Bankoff took his
turn at the pages and entertained his
employee’s children with stories and a
steady stream of dad jokes. Not only did
this simple solution relieve pressure on
beleaguered parents, but it also helped
employees to feel supported and valued by
Vox in a previously unknown way.
Stamps.com, a US-based shipping
company, took the idea of Zoom
entertainment a step further, entertaining
their employee children with digital magic
shows, a virtual petting zoo (minus the
petting), and themed lunches with
characters such as Elsa from Frozen. Again,
it was the simple, tried and tested solutions
that bought staff a few hours off so they
could focus on their jobs, as well as
showing appreciation and understanding
as employees battled with their new normal.
Even something as simple as giving excess
meeting time to kids can be used to buy
parents a few precious minutes of peace.
This was a policy implemented at GitLabs,
where meetings that finished earlier than
expected could be turned into
meet-and-greet sessions for the kids. The
policy allowed children to meet and
socialise with other people their own age
from around the world while buying parents
valuable minutes to make a cup of tea or
coffee or prepare for their next meetings.
Simple as these ideas are, they bring both
delight and relief to employees who are
working as hard as they can to fill and excel
in the roles of parent and professional, as
well as showing an elevated level of care
from the businesses who employ them.
A workout a day keeps the insanity at bay
While caring for our children is critical, so
too is our own mental and physical health,
and as visiting, gyms and sports clubs has
become problematic, the ability to look
after our health is being facilitated in new
and exciting ways.
is one example of the new era of
home health. Through 2020 they saw
astronomical growth, with their membership
base hitting 3.1 million by the end of June,
more than double what it was the year
before. Driven by COVID-caused gym
closures, Peleton excelled because they
had taken the time to pay attention to both
the digital and physical experiences their
products offered, as well as the aesthetic
design.
As demand for their cycling and running
machines - each with a built-in touchscreen
- grew, so too did the usership, with the
number of “connected fitness” subscribers
increasing by 113% by the end of June and
with the average number of workouts
growing to more than 24/month, double
what was seen in 2019.
However, as important as caring for our
body is, it is the mind that drives everything.
Working from home - as stated before - is
difficult even before you factor in the macro
issues like societal disruption, political
uncertainty, climate change, and the
omnipresent pandemic.
This is where tools like
and
earn their crust, and shine. In an email
shared with CNBC last World Mental Health
Day (10.10.20), Headspace revealed that
they had seen inbound interest from
companies seeking mental health benefits
for their workforce increase by over 500%.
In addition, they saw the number of users
beginning their “
”
course grow by a factor of six, and a survey
they conducted revealed that 53% of
workers now believe that mental health
benefits are essential. As we move into a
new year with COVID, it is unlikely that we
will see a change in this behaviour.
The value and benefits of meditation apps
and exercise machines are clear and easy
to understand on an individual level. We
take care of our mental and physical health,
and in doing so we buy time for ourselves
and keep ourselves fit, healthy, and happy.
Simple. But what about our children? As
schools and sports clubs close, they take
with them the ability for our children to
enjoy themselves and keep active. Some
studies have found that children today -
even before COVID - are up to 15% less fit
than their parents were at the same age, a
statistic that is sure to amplify if they are
unable to exercise and play. This is again
an area where the digital world can help in
the physical.
was a digital solution
developed by Wonderland for Nike and
Zalando, where children and parents could
use technology to get on their feet and
active. By creating two browser-first AR
games, parents could hold the phone for
their kids and engage with them while they
exercised by either keeping a virtual ball in
the air or dancing and hitting the virtual
marks. In total, Train & Play saw over 19,000
sessions and over 1.9 million views, which
was a fantastic response. But the more
important statistic was the 7-minute
average engagement time that parents and
children spent exercising together and
staying active. It was a true example of
digital magic.
It's all fun and games. Literally.
Health and wellness can only go so far
though, and for many of us feelings of
isolation and loneliness have been common
bedfellows regardless of how much energy
we put into looking after ourselves.
Confined to our homes, with limited - if any
- social interaction with friends or family,
many people turned to video games as a
way to connect with one another. This has
been seen in tried and true successes like
Minecraft and Fortnite - both of which are
free to play - as well as runaway successes
like
.
It would be surprising if you hadn’t heard
one or another of your colleagues or
friends mention Animal Crossing, and their
need to collect shells or catch bugs for their
new island homes. In this delightfully
bizarre world, a community of people, or
more accurately: anthropomorphic animals,
built homes, attended parties, and behaved
in much the same way they would
pre-COVID. People hosted birthday and
dinner parties, went to the beach together,
and generally just hung out. In short, this
new, digital world gave people a way to be
together, apart.
More than that, the success revealed an
often ignored or overlooked reality for video
games. Corny as it sounds, they can and do
bring people together. In the case of Animal
Crossings: New Horizons it was over 26
million people, to be specific. In fact, Animal
Crossing was so successful that it broke
the record for the most digital copies of a
game sold in a month, with over 5 million
downloads in the first four weeks.
even listed it in the top 5 games
of H12020, and while there was a clear case
of ‘right time, right place’, the success is
undeniable, and the joy was clearly real.
If we take this one step further, and explore
the importance of multiplayer games, a
quick
search reveals just how
powerful they are. The top ten most played
games of 2020 all had a multiplayer
element to them, enabling friends to
connect and play together in a time when
the real world was denied to them.
Admittedly, most have a skew towards
shooting and fighting, but even then, the
top three are games where success is
heavily dependent on teamwork and
collaboration to come out on top.
Let's review, shall we?
While 2020 was an undeniably hard year for
us all, there was some good to find amidst
the hard. Families got to spend more time
together than ever before, mental health
became globally recognised for its
importance, and we found fun in the digital
when the physical was denied us. So as we
look back on the maelstrom that was 2020,
the question has to be asked: what digital
magic can we look forward to in 2021, and
where do you fit in? What will you create for
your teams to make working from home
easier for them? What unsolved problems
have your consumers discovered in 2020?
And, most importantly, what’s holding you
back from starting?
Over the next few weeks, we will be taking
time to explore how digital solutions could
help answer these questions, and what
lessons can be learned from 2020 to make
2021 a whole lot better, for ourselves and
our teams. So keep your eyes peeled on the
Wonderland blog and social pages for the
articles as they come!
INC 16-22 BRAND EXPERIENCE DESIGN 
