What consumer changes are here to stay as the world starts to heal from the pandemic?
Global research house Forrester has studied trends that CMOs need to measure to gain an accurate, comprehensive and predictive understanding of consumers.
“Consumers have always been in a state of flux,” write Forrester analysts in a study, The Consumer Behaviors That Will Endure After The Pandemic.
“While the pandemic was unpredictable, consumer reactions are now unfolding along bigger, ongoing trajectories of change.”
A key message is: Don’t expect customers to settle into a defined post-pandemic normal.
“The CMOs who pull ahead in the coming years will be those who partner with customers to build the future, use the momentum of the downturn to accelerate through recovery, and take a long-term view that anticipates and advances consumer empowerment,” says Forrester.
“Fortunately, most marketing leaders are prepared to use consumer understanding as the compass to navigate to valuable innovation opportunities.”
Don’t drop consumer behaviours into “pre-pandemic” and “post-pandemic” buckets, say the analysts.
And stay away from seductive charts that elegantly demarcate the start and stop of specific consumer trends.
The reality, according to Forrester:
Consumers have always been in a state of flux.
“Even before the onset of the pandemic, consumers’ drive for empowerment was apparent in seemingly random behaviors and demands — from the hyperadoption and hyperabandonment of emerging devices to the voices of values-based consumers,” they write.
“Because the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed vulnerabilities in the global system and because consumers are highly sensitive to risks that threaten their wellbeing, they will continue to experiment with new ways of harnessing technology to build resilience."
Constant consumer change is a defining element of the new normal.
The analysts say consumers, although deeply nostalgic when they reflect on their pre-pandemic lifestyle, are now mostly keenly aware that there will be no quick and easy return to life as they knew it.
Consumers notoriously underestimate how much more they will change over time.
“Because the COVID-19 pandemic has had a longer and broader impact than many people initially expected, consumers are only just realising that its repercussions will also be vast and long lasting,” write the analysts.
”They often exaggerate how much they’ve changed in the past and underestimate how much their tastes, preferences, and behaviors will continue to change in the future.”
Forrester says its data-driven observations during gthe pandemic reveal that consumers are still accelerating along these five key dimensions:
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