The rain hasn’t stopped for hours. Wind rattles the shelter’s windows as the storm outside swells, flooding the streets they used to call home. In a crowded gym, a family of four sit huddled together on makeshift beds pushed side by side each other. The parents wrap donated blankets around their shoulders; the teenagers lean against each other. Someone suggests a movie: something light, something old. They settle on a childhood favourite, a worn-out Pixar film, its colours flickering softly on the phone screen. Familiar voices, the opening music, the brand logo before the title… For a few minutes, it feels like the flood damage caused to their home no longer matters because they are together.

This is not just nostalgia. Research shows it is a form of collective coping. When the world feels unstable, why do we cling to familiar household brands and family rituals?

In our recent research published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing, we explored how families use everyday brands and consumer rituals to restore a shared sense of identity after major life-changing disruptions.

Drawing on interviews and the diaries of 22 French families during the Covid-19 lockdowns, we found that major life disruptions, sudden collective shocks like pandemics, wars, or natural disasters, destabilise shared identities. When crisis strikes, family units don’t merely adapt their routines; they rebuild who they are together through consumption.

Brands act as scaffolding for reconstructing “who we are together”. Products, platforms, and........

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