Brands must act fast to keep pace with the new class of social demands and cultural etiquette emerging as the world moves towards a new normal, says Emma Chiu
Uncertainty and fear are being widely talked of as key human responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. And it is a fact that each has helped re-shape consumer attitudes and behaviours brand loyalties and consumption patterns in just a matter of weeks. Without doubt, both are pressing concerns and re-building confidence and trust is now key for every business and consumer as the world moves out of lockdown. Yet this is by no means the whole story. Which is why understanding the bigger picture will be critical if businesses are to unlock new opportunities as the world moves towards a new normal.
Consumer attitudes and behaviours
An essential starting point is the impact Covid-19 has had on consumer attitudes and behaviours. The lockdown many nations implemented to help combat the virus’ spread has given people time to reflect on their values – along with what is important, what is not – and to reprioritise.
For many, Covid-19 has highlighted the importance of many things they might not have previously considered so closely. The importance of community, for example, and how closely individual health and community health are interlinked. The need for better public health. And the importance of protecting future generations.
All of which makes for a plethora of rapidly evolving (and some brand new) consumer attitudes that businesses must now address and to which they must adapt.
To understand this more deeply, we revisited The Future 100 – our 100 most important trends for 2020, which we published back in January – to see what Covid-19 has changed. And our re-analysis reveals a number of important things.
Sources of optimism
The first is an acceleration of consumers’ interest in and demand for sources of optimism, according to our new report, The Future 100 2.0.20. From a brand perspective, this means consumers prioritising unifying and optimistic messaging. And in recent weeks this has propelled uplifting and inspiring platforms such as John Krasinski’s Some Good News YouTube channel, or The Telegraph newspapers’ Coronavirus Positive column as well as brand strategies – Doritos’ ‘Doritos Valedictorian’ platforming inspiring speeches by graduating seniors.
The second is the propulsion even further up people’s priorities list of the importance of facts over rumour and misinformation and, as important, rapid position now being action by social media platform previously blamed for the spread of both. Since late April, YouTube has been adding fact-checking panels to US videos, for example. Search terms for ‘coronavirus’, ‘Covid-19’ and related terms are now being limited to internationally-recognised health organisations by Pinterest.
Tech for good
Loosely connected to this is an acceleration of consumers’ desire for tech for good – though thanks to Covid-19, ‘good’ equates to products, services and related experiences that minimise or avoid exposure to germs, viruses and pollutants and maximise hygiene and sanitation.
Many retailers, for example, preparing for the return of consumers to bricks and mortar outlets are installing plexiglass barriers while airlines are doing the sums of leaving alternative seats free to aid social distancing.
Some 92% of Americans admire companies taking action to stop the spread of coronavirus – emphasising the value people will place on companies offering protection, according to a March 2020 Wunderman Thompson Data survey.
Consumption for consumption’s sake
Third, is an acceleration of a trend away from consumption for consumption’s sake to a more considered approach to consumerism that involves consumers taking greater account of the impact of their money on society and the planet. With regular purchasing patterns disrupted by lockdown and uncertainty over prospects for household income over the months ahead, there is a tangible yearning for less frequent, more mindful consumption – among Millennials and Gen Z-ers, especially.
As striking, however, are the new trends to have emerged because of Covid-19.
1First is a surge in spirituality that may well last longer than lockdown. A number of recent surveys show not only have people prayed more in recent weeks but that more people have turned to prayer. Others, meanwhile, have turned to meditation and other forms of spirituality.
2The second is people’s willingness to use the screen as a window on the world in ways unthinkable just a few months ago. Luxury travel company Brown and Hudson, for one, is looking forward to a mix of augmented and virtual technologies creating ‘a serious and exciting alternative to the reality of travel’ – for example to co-created imagined destinations.
Others, meanwhile, are already offering virtual ‘trips’ – weekend mental and physical wellbeing ‘retreats, for example – experiences from the ‘travellers’ own home. In April, Airbnb launched Online Experiences allowing virtual tourists to travel via Zoom – for example, to Japan, to meditate with Buddhist monks.
Allied to this emerging trend is its converse: the reimagining of physical experiences that can only be experiences in the physical world. The most obvious example here is dining out, and pilots already underway include tables placed in glass dining pods – like mini-greenhouses –by one restaurant in Amsterdam.
3Third, a new language of advertising is emerging in response to the upending of many cultural tropes. With ad standard backdrops of crowded scenes now seen as, at best, off-key, brands must adapt to a less touch-oriented world. For though the majority of people expect to return eventually to most of their regular activities, this is not the case with person-to-person interactions.
In the US, more than 70% of people expect to go back to restaurants and movie theatres, according to a Wunderman Thompson Data survey. Yet 36% expect to continue social distancing, and 43% do not expect to resume shaking hands, according to the same study.
Though only a snapshot of the accelerated and emerging behaviours we are now seeing, these trends point to a number of messages for brand owners are clear. Consumer expectations of brands which are already high, will get even higher. Consumers’ decisions on which products and services to let into their lives will be based on which they feel best understand their rapidly evolving concerns and priorities.
And brands must act fast to keep pace with the new class of social demands and cultural etiquette now emerging rapidly as the world moves towards a new normal.
Emma Chiu is Global Director at Wunderman Thompson Intelligence – Wunderman Thompson’s futurism, research and innovation unit, which charts emerging and future global trends, consumer change, and innovation patterns and translates these into insight for brands.
