After an incredibly hard year for the face-to-face marketing industry, there is finally some light on the horizon: The accelerating decline of COVID-19 has people excitedly planning to finally get out of the house and back into the world. Don't just take my word for it. Some of America's biggest institutions are rapidly changing their COVID-enforced positions as well. Recently, the MLB and NFL announced plans to reopen to live fans in stadiums (in some cases at 100-percent capacity by the fall), LiveNation announced plans to reopen some music festivals by midsummer, and movie theatres began opening their doors in long-shuttered markets like Los Angeles and New York. Clearly, the spring and summer of 2021 will bring a return to something far more normal and desperately needed for so long by so many, and people are looking forward to bringing joy back into their lives.

For brands, there is genuine excitement to be a part of this renaissance. Who wouldn't want to engage their consumers as they step back into their world with a smile on their face? But there is also hesitation about exactly when things will go back to normal. I don't have an exact date for you (sorry about that), but I sincerely believe that fortune favors the brave. One or a few brands are facing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to boldly step out into the market ahead of their nervous competitors. These brands will act decisively by crafting safe, considered, joyful experiences, pop-ups, and activations for eager consumers venturing out for the first time in over a year. So let's take a quick look at why I believe right now is the most unique opportunity in marketing for a century – and why it represents the chance to powerfully engage your audience as they seek out joy.

The Resurgence of Joy Marketing
"Joy marketing" is when brands set out to elicit from their audiences this one emotion above all others. This may seem pretty self-explanatory, but there's fascinating scientific evidence showing why joy is such a powerful emotion. First of all, "joy triggers" tend to be consistent across demographics and even psychographics – old or young, left brain or right brain, introverted or extroverted. We all find joy in many of the same things. Secondly, joy is contagious. It literally makes people more attractive, and people will dwell longer in retail spaces that inspire joy compared to stores that don't. And finally, 93 percent of Americans want to find more ways to experience joy every day, yet only 40 percent think they have enough joy in their lives.

When joy marketing started trending five to 10 years ago, a lot of brands went all in, fueled by psychologist-led research: Johnnie Walker, BMW, Reddi-Wip, Cadbury, Citibank, Aperol. The list goes on across all manner of industry verticals. And truthfully, it's nothing new: 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of perhaps the most famous example of joy marketing – adman Bill Backer's famous "I want to buy the world a Coke," one of the most successful and iconic campaigns of all time.

So why is it so important to think about joy marketing now? Simply put, because the world has never needed joy more. But they've also never needed screen content less. Many of the brands mentioned earlier created content that connected their brand to an element of joy. But in this time of utter screen fatigue, the last thing your brand should be making is more digital content. Instead, take a leaf out of Marie Kondo's book, i.e., don't simply allude to joy through a screen, but spark actual joy for your consumers out in the world. Aim to create experiences, activations, and pop-ups that tap into the upcoming zeitgeist of positivity and add to the collective joy of getting out of the house. This could be creating public art exhibits meant to enhance and add beauty in local neighborhoods, akin to NY PopsUp, which is delivering thousands of performances to revitalize the spirit and emotional well-being of New York citizens. This means planning for that now, which brings us to our next section: why being first will matter most.

Fortune Favors the Brave
As the weather warms up and more of the U.S. population receives the COVID-19 vaccine, there will be more and more people safely venturing out of their homes, hungry for experiences. That's where your brand comes in – if you're brave enough to stand out. But let's skip ahead for a moment.

It's safe to assume that at some point this summer, the floodgates will well and truly have opened. We'll see an explosion of brand experiences, pop-ups, events, and activations. After over a year of digital-only engagements, brands will be itching to engage their audiences in more meaningful ways. But as I pointed out earlier, they'll be competing not just with one another, but with a world of long-missed entertainment: the return of live sports, concerts, music festivals, theatre, unencumbered dining, beer festivals, theme parks, going to the movies, going to the beach, and much more. For the brands that wait, this is the reality that awaits them: clutter, competition, and the need to shout. But for the brands that think ahead, going early could mean owning the market and leveraging a groundswell of optimism as people venture back out.

So how can your brand take advantage and own the story early? I see four key things for you to consider:

1. Lock your creative in now.
Effective and powerful creative executions take time, refinement, and rounds of internal buy-in. Get this process started now so your brand is ready to pull the trigger and get out into the world ahead of your competitors.

2. Lock your venues.
Make no mistake. The rush is real. Even now we are seeing venues and permits drying up for Q4, and I expect to see this trend move into Q3, and then Q2. The best experience in the world is useless if you can't find anywhere to put it, so now is the time to have your production partners on the phone to permit offices and venues to hold dates and pay deposits – which should be transferable in case something needs to change at the last minute.

3. Incorporate flexibility into the plan.
The vaccine rollout is largely being run at a state level, which means certain markets will open up faster than others. While I understand the importance of target markets, I'd still recommend a degree of flexibility. Consider a number of markets across the country (or at least in different states) in order to move quickly as opportunities present themselves. If California is open and Florida is lagging, could you target Los Angeles instead of Miami?

4. Think about hitting the road.
Finally, think about the reach you could get via a road show or mobile pop-up. Why not take your experience to the Northeast, the South, or down the West Coast, hitting multiple locations and engaging multiple audiences? I said it before, and I'll say it again: This is a once-in-a-century opportunity for brands to engage their audiences as they step back into the world, filled with optimism and eager to seek out experiences.

Just as the brands that pivoted quickly to virtual benefitted with a competitive advantage over their slower-moving rivals, so too will the fast movers be rewarded as things finally move in the opposite direction. For those brave enough to get ahead of the wave, joyful experiences, activations, and pop-ups represent a wonderful way to meaningfully participate in what will likely be one of the most positive periods in history: the summer we all got out of the house.