If I can’t pay my bills…I’m not going to buy your product, mate.

I’m calling this the summer when 2020 came knocking. Every delayed wedding, holiday and social gathering (happy 41st, anyone?) that had been disrupted by the pandemic seemed to be rescheduled for the summer of 2022. That made for one hell of a celebratory (and scorching) summer in our little corner of Oxfordshire…and one hell of a bill to pay. Out of the necessity of not losing deposits or letting down family and friends, (and, let’s face it, because I really wanted to), I behaved like a duchess. Two weeks in the southwest of France…a wedding in Spain…a week on the south coast…oh, for my freelance writing career to prove so lucrative that this becomes the summer norm!

Well, this little duchess has slammed back to earth with a bump.

The September rain we’re currently being showered with has been a welcome relief in the light of forest fires an hour from our French campsite and droughts and hosepipe bans proliferating. But they foretell the winter to come and the days when my hand itches to flick the thermostat on, if only for an hour, to warm away the British damp that (I remember now!) will soon seep into my very bones. But this year, the winter when multiple global crises come knocking, our thermostat will be turned down low until icicles hang at the windows.

At a conservative estimate, our utility bills are going to jump to over £500 per month. That’s for a four-bed housing five people. It’s never too late to strategise in the face of a crisis, and believe me when I tell you I’m strategising the hell out of my bedroom ceiling when I lie down to sleep at night. We’ll get the open fire going; we’ll dry all our clothes in the bedrooms where our sleeping bodies generate heat; we’ll compete on what is sure to be announced as the latest desperate TV show: Champion-Microwave-Gourmet-Cooks-on-a-Budget.

This new reality prompts key questions. Firstly - when heating our home becomes a luxury, which luxuries from the before-time will be out of the question? And, secondly, - which of 2021’s middle-of-the-road purchases will move over to the luxury column? And if that’s what I’m asking as someone on a middle-income, what about everyone else? Is it only high-earners whose purchases will keep the economy moving and businesses turning over?

If organisations want to retain and develop their audience, my prediction is that a trend towards quality is going to be key: solid products that we can repair, re-use and even re-sell. Consumables will need to be reliable, familiar, comforting; food and drink will be a consolation in the times ahead, displacing, albeit temporarily, the experience economy: that £12 top shelf bottle of wine is the experience we’ll reach for over the professional wine tasting event we attended last year. Whatever our budget, the point is, each time we put our hands in our pockets, we’ll be choosy. Because we’ll have to be.

So, in an ever-churning sea of selling, what’s going to reach audiences and persuade them to give their pounds to company A over company B? Presentation. Every. Time. Slow, clunky websites overburdened with confusing, excessive directories and endless filter options will turn us off. Concise, confident copy matched with rich, inviting images will draw us in and build our confidence. And the product will, of course, have to back that presentation up. Fast, disposable fashion and junky novelty products that break easily will carry a resonance in the waste and regret they generate that they perhaps didn’t have before. And the planet will breathe a sigh of relief, of course.

Perhaps the winter of 2022 will bring longer-term benefits with it. Perhaps we’ll finally disengage from the endless cycle of binge and bust. Perhaps we’ll see the folly of consumer culture for what it is, or rather, what it was. Maybe we’ll collectively embrace the approach of our Grandparents, gaining hands-on skills to make, build and repair…

However we respond to the long, cold winter ahead, businesses, no matter how large or small, would do well to invest in the image they present. Which demands a top-quality copywriter, of course.

Oh, and discounts. Lots and lots of discounts.