The media world has been operating under a fallacy for too long now. Conventional wisdom is that someone will find a cure for Covid within 2020 or 2021 at least. This is based on the fact that every pharmaceutical firm in the world is working on a vaccine and Pfizer is said to have one ready for delivery by October.
An optimist can look at such reports and surmise that it’s only a matter of time until a cure comes, but there are no guarantees. And certainly there are doubters who don’t believe a cure will ever come.
As hard as it may be to believe, we may be living like this for years. Five years from now, a cure may be elusive, as it has been for AIDS, Parkinson’s Disease and Multiple Sclerosis.
If that’s the case, it’s worth looking at the long-term effects that a prolonged exposure to coronavirus would have on our lives and the economy. Here are some estimates:
The upside of all this is that there will be less time devoted to shopping. Hopefully, consumers will have recognized that most of the items they buy monthly are repeated and can save time at checkout.
For marketers, that will mean less money allocated to shopper marketing and more towards mobile marketing. Whenever this coronavirus crisis ends, we will be looking at a different landscape.
I am a veteran ad industry journalist with a fondness for tech. I have also witnessed first-hand the sweeping changes in the media landscape over the past two or three
I am a veteran ad industry journalist with a fondness for tech. I have also witnessed first-hand the sweeping changes in the media landscape over the past two or three decades. I was the final editor of Adweek’s Brandweek and was the founding business editor of Mashable. My work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist and elsewhere. My interests include technology, marketing, media and dogs. My favorite movie about the advertising business is How to Get Ahead in Advertising and my favorite TV show about it is, of course, MadMen. I live in New Jersey. You can reach me at [email protected].