Post-pandemic advertising is coming up fast. | Miguel Sanz/Getty Images

Brands want to help consumers imagine a post-pandemic world, but they’re cautious about celebrating prematurely.

In early March, a viral campaign from the menswear company Suitsupply provided a brief, harrowing glimpse into our post-pandemic future — and the advertisements that might usher us into it. The featured models were entangled in a web of tanned limbs, touching aggressively and tongue-kissing sloppily. Everyone was scantily clad except for the campaign’s lead man, dressed in a tailored suit. The “new normal,” the Suitsupply advertisement teased, would be sexy, sweaty, and sensual.

The raunchy images set off a frenzy of reactions online, but the campaign’s success at generating discourse led to suggestions that horniness and hedonism might be embraced as brand marketing tactics with the new new normal in sight. Some experts think