When we talk about shaping emerging habits in consumers today, they have been influenced a great deal by the pandemic.
The new year has just arrived and businesses around the world are ready to step into 2022 with renewed vitality. Economies are moving towards recovery as we move ahead with a set of fresh learnings. The measures of social distancing and staying at home had a mammoth impact on the global business scenario.
Birthing the ‘at-home’ economy, businesses present only in physical form with the inability to be flexibly incurred significant losses while the world rapidly made a shift towards digital platforms to save the day. Amidst all this, trade and commerce underwent a 360-degree change to adapt to the new normal of the seemingly never-ending restrictions. Cut to the present time, 2022 has just started with diligent learnings from the past two years. In the changed scenario of businesses, marketers are starting to strike a balance between the dynamically evolving consumer behaviour in order to exponentially grow their brands in the coming year.
Shape emerging habits with new offerings
When we talk about shaping emerging habits in consumers today, they have been influenced a great deal by the pandemic. In addition to the peculiar conditions experienced during that time, I think
our belief system plays a major role in any kind of habit formation. The past two years are to be credited for a major shift in our beliefs as consumers and hence it was seen that something that consumers would have never opted for in a state of normalcy was easily and widely adopted during the lockdown period.
About two or three years back, there was a research done by Nielsen, which talked about online buying behaviour, talking specifically about India. It said that online buying contributed less than 1% of revenue. And it would take about a decade, or by 2028 for online buying to contribute 8% to 10% of the total FMCG kitty. If we observe the kind of growth that we have witnessed in online buying in the last one and a half years, it seems phenomenal. This is an example of a major shift in consumer behaviour which was warranted by pandemic and work-from-home culture being inculcated due to it, which otherwise would have taken a much longer time.
Sustaining the new habits using contextual cues
Given the period of almost two years, the entire world has taken a contextual cue on the new normal. With increased vaccination and a reduced number of Covid-19 cases, consumers have gradually started moving back to their previous patterns and in terms of FMCG, it means either going to mom and pop stores, along with other offline mediums.
To a great extent now, it is up to companies to sustain the new consumer lifestyle and uphold buying patterns like online shopping. Most brands perceive convenience as the only key to driving traffic, however, on actual terms, price is an important factor. So, although a brand claims to be high on aspects like convenience and delivery, it would also require to meet consumer expectations in not just delivering a great experience but also providing a better price. This will propel customers to continue buying from them.
Aligning messages to consumer mindsets
Today, there is a significant impact on the brand-consumer relationship with first, ‘how to communicate with your consumers, and second, ‘what to’ communicate to consumers. Digital mediums saw an exponential rise as the new channels of communication between consumers and brands. The viability and ease of access to digital mediums like social media worked in dual ways i.e., it informed consumers of what brands were doing. Likewise, it gave brands insight into consumer sentiment and the direction in which consumers were moving. Ultimately, it is the conjunction of the brand messaging to the present consumer mindset that determines how successful a brand can be in retaining the faith of its target audience.
Some trends that we observed recently were - online buying, media consumption, increased mindfulness, etc. Consumers utilized online mediums to buy both essential as well as non-essential items considering the safety and hygienic factors promoted this heavily over the past two years.
Furthermore, the personal consumption of media on mobile phones shot up and we witnessed a huge surge among OTT users. Owing to this, from a consumer companies point of view, the media strategy for brands underwent a big change. Most importantly, tactics and strategy of communication changed. In a time when there was a lot of anxiety and uncertainty due to the medical and economic crisis, brands had to step up and be responsible with communication keeping the general sentiment in mind. A lot of mindfulness came into play from brands in showing solidarity with any situation that citizens face.
Analyzing consumer beliefs and behaviours at a granular level
As a marketer, it is extremely important to keep a close look at the trends and patterns in consumer behaviours. Influenced by their beliefs, consumers change their ways according to the prevailing condition. To cite a recent example, during the onset of the pandemic, food companies had the most important duty to play i.e., to let consumers know that we were available for them and our factories would ensure no food shortage, so that we change the panic/hoarding mentality to pacify the crisis. Letting consumers know what you're doing; and more importantly, that they can reach out if they are in need of any sort of help is the definition of ‘responsible brand’.
Social listening is an important aspect of being a responsible brand. To be able to understand consumer sentiments at the very ground level, one needs to be aware of what customers are talking about, what they think of the brand and how the business can fulfil any existing needs/ gaps for them. Ensuring transparency of communication regarding brand efforts is also a must-do. When a brand is in sync with the pulse of its consumers, adjusting to the needs of the consumers becomes more flexible. During any kind of crisis, this is something that takes any brand-consumer relationship a long way ahead. It instils the belief of trust and reliance in the mind of a consumer towards a brand.
In a nutshell, the different touchpoints in a consumer's journey while interacting with a brand sum up their experience. Brands need to be cognizant about their move and keep track of the evolving dynamics of consumer behaviour and the role that proactive communication plays in being mindful of fulfilling the emerging needs of consumers.