Kevin Ryan's: Culture Matters

Rumors were floating last week that Amazon might be in the market to buy struggling movie theater chain AMC. While nothing has been confirmed beyond ‘unnamed sources say,’ analysts see some potential merit in the idea, especially in a post-COVID world. The theaters may represent a new distribution channel for Amazon programming, legitimize their own-produced movies for awards, and (most likely) serve as a perk for Prime members.

Uber has offered to buy GrubHub, a deal that values the food delivery app at $6.9 billion. If the merger goes through (a big IF, as Elizbeth Warren and AOC talk of an oversight committee that would halt COVID-inspired acquisitions), Uber would control 55% of the food delivery business.

Several companies (from Dominos, PepsiCo and General Mills) are cutting their third quarter television ad spend in the wake of the pandemic. As contractual commitments and upfront ad spend lapse, many big companies have decided to pull their money—an estimated $1B to $1.5B. For some companies this is a way to save cash, but for many others it’s a chance to move their ad budget to other platforms, anticipating a significant drop in audience as sports and scripted programming struggle to return.

So What? Typically, my weeks involve helping companies with their innovation strategy—where can they grow, what are they missing, how can they deliver better products for consumers. However, for the past few months my days have been spent on Zoom calls leading corporate teams through activities meant to envision what their businesses looks like post-COVID. And I’ll be honest—it’s been a struggle. Not because the teams haven’t been engaged or the topic incorrectly scoped, but because its been hard to move teams past a simple premise: returning to normal.
Do you remember when all of this started, and many of us thought: a few weeks locked down, work from home, watch some Netflix and it will all blow over. Not having a modern point of reference, what did we know. However, a few weeks became a month, then two, and slowly the confinement and anxiety became too much. ‘Getting back to normal’ has become a soothing late-night thought as we all lay in bed trying to wrestle with the overwhelming sense of uncertainty. We crave the simple things we took for granted just a few months ago: restaurants, sporting events, haircuts and ‘socially non-distant’ conversations with friends. Now, getting ‘back to normal’ is all we can think about.
Emotionally and personally, this makes sense; we can all be forgiven for wanting the social aspects of our lives back. Rationally and professionally, the desire to ‘get back to normal’ is a liability. The effects of the virus and the lockdown have upended industries—rattling supply chains, hobbling production and radically altering the CPG, retail and foodservice landscape for years to come. Any hopes of a sharp ‘V’ in economic recovery have transitioned to the much slower ‘swoosh’—pushing us into an precedented recession. Seeing the previous ‘normal’ as the only potential end goal, not only denies reality, but stops us from seeing potential opportunities.
It’s tempting to get our teams working to re-build systems for a world that no longer exists. The scaffolding is still there, the teams are in place and it would be so easy to reengage the metrics and get back to business. However, stop and think a minute. Is the comforting inertia of ‘normal’ stopping you from seeing what’s next?
One thing that I’ve started to do with clients in strategy sessions is to have them look at the post-COVID world as though they were a VC. By forcing them to temporarily remove their brand, their capital, and their current resources from the equation—essentially removing the ‘normal’—I’ve found that they gain a clearer POV on what’s possible.

STOP defaulting to ‘normal’ and START focusing on ‘next.’