The word 'pivot' has been used approximately seven billion times in 2020 and I am officially filing a motion to retire it. But the concept underneath the buzzword is worth examining: which brands actually changed in response to the pandemic, and which ones just announced a change while staying exactly the same?
Real pivots require real sacrifice. Patagonia closing stores and telling people to stay home, that costs them money. Distilleries switching to hand sanitizer production, that required retooling. Restaurants building genuine delivery operations from scratch, that demanded new capabilities. These are real pivots. They changed what the brand does, not just what it says.
When Yvon Chouinard gave Patagonia away to fight climate change, he didn't just make a donation. He made every other CEO's 'sustainability commitment' look like what it was: a press release.
Fake pivots are everywhere: 'We're all in this together' ad campaigns that changed nothing about the business. 'Unprecedented times' emails that were just excuses to sell something. 'Pivoting to digital' announcements from companies that just... made a Zoom account. The bar for 'pivot' has been set so low that having a website now counts.
Fake pivots are everywhere: 'We're all in this together' ad campaigns that changed nothing about the business.
What I'm tracking: which pandemic-era changes will persist and which will quietly revert the moment offices reopen. My bet is that 80% of announced 'pivots' were temporary marketing positions rather than genuine strategic shifts. The brands that will come out of this stronger are the 5% that discovered something true about themselves during the crisis and committed to it permanently.
Barnaby pivoted to full-time desk occupation when I started working from home and I respect that his pivot is genuine. He's not going back to occasional desk sitting. This is permanent. This is commitment.