Many American families will be staying home and indoors a lot more this year, thanks to COVID-19. This cultural change is impacting how consumers, like moms, shop and what they buy. Our new ‘stay at home’ culture is also impacting the type of messaging and content brands and retailers share with consumers, like moms.
Now that we are in the pandemic times, consumer behavior has dramatically changed from what it was just a few months ago. Answer this — how are your target consumers learning about your brand and products now? How are consumers shopping for your products? How are they using your products in their home? All of these areas of consumer behavior have changed and are still evolving.
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Many of the folks I've interviewed so far, since the COVID-19 lockdown, (see our recent shopper research looking ahead to Summer) are what I call "mission shoppers" - consumers who are looking to get what's on their list and get out ASAP.
Since the pandemic started, I’ve had several clients and new clients hire us to conduct virtual research for them as they seek to keep a constant pulse on how their consumers think, behave and buy during these changing times. Our clients are testing marketing concepts, everything from TV spots to social media posts, and how to announce things like new product launches, all to ensure the messaging and imagery resonates, and is not perceived as inappropriate for the times.
Food & grocery, beverages (alcohol & non-alcoholic,) household products (like disinfectants and cleaning products,) and children’s products (educational, food & entertainment) have been the categories we’ve conducted the most research for recently.
As you may know, we most often focus on in-person, qualitative research, in the form of shop-alongs inside stores or inside consumers’ homes. For the foreseeable future, all of our shopper interviews will be conducted virtually.
During difficult economic times, we often see the bigger, better-known brands perform the best. While there are certainly many factors that play into why that is, one of them is certainly research. The likes of Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, Reckitt Benckiser Group, Johnson & Johnson, The Clorox Company and The Coca-Cola Company are constantly keeping a pulse on how their target consumers are learning about, shopping for and using their products. Knowing your consumer, not just guessing, is always important, but now more than ever. If you want to survive, or better than that, thrive, during this new age, you better be a few steps ahead. In order to do that, you must know what your consumer is thinking and doing now so you can adapt and best serve their needs.
Contact us to stop the guessing game and get real insights about your consumers that you can start putting into practice now. We can leverage our own panel of consumers, recruit your consumers or help you build your own consumer panel.
