The Recovery will be Unevenly Distributed

Photo by Edwin Hooper on Unsplash

While the economy is showing a strong rebound from last year’s pandemic recession, it is not universal. As we come out of lockdown 4.0, we’re seeing that the impact of Covid is more varied this time without the safety net of JobKeeper and/or withdrawals from Super to keep us spending.

There is a growing divide between the haves and the have-nots.

Those who can, work from home, if they’re predominantly white collar and have a laptop and for them it’s business as usual. But not everyone can WFH and they are not essential workers. Those who can’t work in person are losing hours and income and are struggling to find the money for rent and to buy food and essential goods.

Physical health and wellbeing is understandably a priority at the moment. However, as highlighted by GWI data, for a significant proportion of people, mental health is currently more of a concern than access to a vaccine as they face the challenges of living day-to-day.

This shows the need for marketers to be sensitive to the differing needs and priorities of different segments of their target audience in the market. Being empathetic towards their audience’s mental health as well as their financial position becomes critical to properly nuanced marketing.

It will be important to understand the differences between behaviour change driven by forced necessity and newly acquired habits that are the result of personal choice.

Which new behaviours will stay and which will revert to previous?

While much of retail pivoted to ecommerce with home delivery and click and collect instead of bricks and mortar shopping, how far will this swing back when customers can visit shops again? What will businesses need to do to win customers back in store from their couches? Who will relish the liberty of being able to touch and feel products in real life? Who won’t feel safe being out amongst crowds in shopping centres?

Because it cannot be delivered, experience is losing out to convenience. But to what degree will the desire for convenience remain once the opportunity for experience returns? Who will want to return to in store shopping and what will retailers need to do to attract them back? What will tempt people to go back to dining in-house in restaurants to the same degree as pre-Covid and replace the Uber Eats and Menulog takeaway drivers?

Businesses should recognise and develop differentiated services to cater for the different mindsets and need states of their customers.

More than ever, as we recover from Covid, marketers need insight into the varied needs and motivations of their customer cohorts to create differentiated comms, as one size does not fit all.