Life After The Pandemic: What trends does your brand need to strategize against?

Life After the Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has had widespread impact on our actions and our attitudes. Utilization of grocery delivery has surged with retailers struggling to fulfill demand, many Americans watched Easter services via a live stream, hit movies are now available on your TV instead of theatres and Instagram is full of memes blessing all manners of coping.

American’s expect that some things will be largely the same post-Cv19, like family life and eating habits, but other aspects of life are expected to be very different, such as travel and socialization.  Which specific trends will be most ‘sticky’? And which should your brand pay attention to in order to ensure you have a right to win in ‘the new normal’ everyone is waiting for.  

The Harris Poll evaluated fifteen cultural trends seen in the current pandemic to begin to provide insight into that question.

Key Trends

It’s early to tell, but the data suggests that some of these new trends are extremely ‘sticky’—these may represent cultural shifts that have long-term impact. As most parts of daily life have been disrupted, American’s are realizing what matters, and realizing that it’s ok to just ‘be’. These attitudinal paradigms are poised to stick around. Additionally, grocery delivery and online learning tools have reached a new set of users –and these users are likely to stick around. 

Many emerging trends are tied to current realities and are largely ‘here for covid’. Many of these trends are tied to new experiences that are frustrating –in the event of homeschooling –or have a strong tradition of in-person dynamics, such as religion from home and use of in-person agents (insurance, bankers, etc.). Despite less inherent ‘stickiness’ these may represent opportunities for brands that can help cement these new behaviors and improve experiences for consumers.

And finally, the jury is still out for a few are ‘up-and-coming’ trends, with their long-term post-Cv19 potential yet to be determined.

Download the full report.