MIT Sloan Management Review Article on The Cost of Confidence

The pandemic has clobbered consumer confidence, creating challenges and opportunities to which every organization — brand owners, especially — must respond.

The COVID-19 pandemic has knocked consumer confidence hard, with profound and far-reaching implications. It has disrupted every aspect of daily life, including employment, consumption, and freedom of movement, creating uncertainty about what is safe and what lies ahead. Standard business has been upended, vaporizing certain norms consumers have always expected and assumed. This has created challenges and opportunities to which every organization — brand owners, especially — must now respond.

Now, as companies work to prepare for what happens after the pandemic crisis eases, rebuilding confidence has become a business imperative, paving the way for a confidence economy.