The Fear Industry: Dark Content Against Fear, Anxiety, and Uncertain Times

I want to feel something, I want to feel alive! – this is the response given by as many as three thousand out of a total of four thousand respondents in a global survey conducted by the consulting company Wunderman Thompson. The aim was to discover what exactly consumers want in the frightening ‘new normal’ and how brands can respond to their post-pandemic emotional needs. Although the research and conversations with, as stated in the report, twenty opinion makers resulted in as many as eighteen trends, they all share one word – enchantment. Consumers want brands to inspire them, enchant them, excite them, help them chase away ugly thoughts and feelings of emptiness, and fill their world with a dose of curiosity, magic, and wonder. They must bring them joy, curiosity, hope, and/or offer an escape from ugly reality; awaken them, help them transcend negative emotions, and open their view to a different picture of the world.

The new measure of brand success, therefore, is how well they manage to give the audience goosebumps, make their hearts flutter, or butterflies flutter in their stomachs. Although it may not seem so, spreading good vibes according to the rules of joyconomy (the joy industry) is not the only way to help customers. Among the ‘joyful’ trends detected by Wunderman Thompson are – dark pleasure, branding mortality, and the full spectrum of feelings. None of these trends is sparkling or rosy; rather, they are quite dark in appearance, but such themes and moods can indeed help consumers confront difficult emotions and make sense of the complicated world in which, whether we like it or not, we must live.

The popularity of horror

Thus, the Wunderman Thompson report states that interest in darker content and dystopian themes is growing. Consumed in moderation, they can serve as a tool for processing trauma and even preparing for future challenges. For example, data from Nash Information Service confirms the growing interest in the horror genre, which peaked in 2021 (12.5 percent) and saw a very slight decline in April this year (10 percent). The popularity of horror, specifically folk horror, is even rising in China, which has previously struggled to digest such content, and major platforms like HBO, Apple TV, or Netflix are recording exceptional viewership of dystopian series such as ‘The Last of Us’,’The Rig’, or ‘Silo’. The audience increasingly enjoys content that thematizes the supernatural, such as the podcast ‘The Uncanny’, which the BBC is turning into a television show. As its author Danny Robins explained, when the world is frightening, the audience wants to feel the jolt of that fear. The explanation is that some enjoy horror content for the adrenaline, while for others, it acts as a sort of safety valve. If we live in a world that is uncertain and chaotic, consumed horrors and terrors can help in safely processing anxiety and restoring a sense of control.

As the report states, 55 percent of respondents believe this is true; it indeed helps them experience fear in a safe environment. Although this ‘recreational’ fear is of lower intensity than real fear, it can somewhat teach the emotional apparatus how to cope with anxiety, what to do with feelings that overwhelm us at the moment we watch/listen to scary fiction. Moreover, the latter can serve as a simulation of potential danger, helping the audience learn and prepare for challenges. For instance, during the pandemic, viewership of the film ‘Contagion’ increased, while the audience simultaneously learned about the pandemic from real sources as well as fictional ones.

The balance of fear

When it comes to brands, experts note that one should not go too far with frightening an already traumatized world, but rather, if one wishes to delve into darker themes, inclusivity should be kept in mind, and fear should be positioned as a challenge that everyone can tackle, meaning that confronting fear is not a matter of innate talent. A good example of this is the campaign by the Tokyo taxi service S.Ride, which challenged passengers to ride with Sadako, the ghost girl from the film ‘The Ring’. The brand Visit Sweden has also devised a special campaign (and accompanying show) ‘Spellbound by Sweden’, inviting visitors to explore Swedish forests filled with mythical creatures and eerie stories. If a brand wants to try dark storytelling, it must keep in mind that achieving a balance is key when playing the fear card. If it is too much, the audience will be terrified; if it is too little, they will be bored.

Those who do not want to risk seeking a balance between acceptable and unacceptable fear may find another dark theme interesting – death. Global events, whether we like it or not, have opened a painful topic of mortality, the fragility of life, and the limited lifespan, and specifically due to the pandemic, 64 percent of respondents in the Wunderman Thompson survey are more aware of mortality and are more in touch with it.

Negative emotions are okay

Many are even willing to take a step further and participate in the industry of ‘dark tourism’, where travelers are taken to places that are in any way connected to death or disasters. The growing interest in the idea of death, or better said, the awareness of that idea, is also an opportunity for brands. However, this does not mean they have to be morbid; rather, on the contrary, they can give death, and even life, a deeper meaning, point to the joy of living, and connect their audience with something greater than themselves, motivating them to make the best use of the little time they have between birth and inevitable departure.

The iconic brand Levi’s has utilized this idea in the campaign ‘The Greatest Story Ever Worn: Legends Never Die’, in which it told the true story of a man who loved his Levi’s so much that everyone wore jeans to his funeral. The company Plum Guide launched a campaign stating that we have no time for average travels (‘No Time for Average Stays’), wanting to remind its customers that they have only a few trips left in life, so they should be brilliant. In South America, the organization Fundación Cardiológica Argentina took advantage of the frenzy around the World Cup and reminded that stress is one of the main causes of heart disease, prompting Twitter users whose posts were the angriest, most disappointed, or warned of high stress levels to visit a cardiologist.

Of course, companies do not only target mortality with campaigns but also with products, as Amazon is developing software that simulates the voice of the deceased, and Somnium Space is working on a feature called Live Forever Mode that allows users to create avatars that look, sound, and move like a deceased loved one.

In the end, the team from Wunderman Thompson states that when it comes to these ‘darker’ trends, brands (and their customers) need to embrace the idea that it is perfectly okay, even desirable, to feel absolutely everything: anxiety, fear, sadness, anger, rage… And, no matter how great it is that brands participate in the joyconomy, striving to uplift, inspire, and delight customers, it is a good thing that they help them embrace ‘negative’ emotions, as this is the first step towards healing and even joy.