4.28 The Pulse Of Covid-19: The Trends Of The Past Week
Are we at mile 6, 13 or 20 – ‘the infamous wall’ – in the race? This ongoing marathon is not for low endurance leaders: navigating this challenge and imagining what the future looks like takes an incredible amount of resilience and persistence.With that being said, we are starting to notice a downshift towards conserving energy as many of us have been running on adrenaline since the lockdown started eight weeks ago.
Mindset is the mantra: getting through a marathon is no easy task, but many runners are able to do it by leveraging a growth mindset and visualizing the outcome. What do you want it to look like when we get out of this? What will your relationship with your customers, co-workers, employees, and community look like? What will you decide to pay attention to, use as health metrics and signals you are on the right path, and what will you respectfully ignore?
We are cheering you on, knowing you will get there, and hopefully providing insights, inspirations, and points of levity along the way.
This week we’ve woven Harris’ latest data throughout the trends, highlighted in bold.
In It For The Long Haul: Businesses shifting to help consumers through the thick and thin duration of being stuck in ‘groundhog’ day. From logistics to future proofing, the solutions they are providing may end up shifting industries forever.
- Drones and data on stand by: CVS and UPS will use drones to deliver prescriptions to a retirement community, while Instagram’s co-founders made a site to track how fast the coronavirus is spreading state by state.
- As we live in a reality of grocery roulette, companies are working tirelessly to fill the gaps: Non-grocery businesses are stepping into grocery delivery, fast-casual chain Pret reopens and adds grocery deliveryto its offerings, boutique long-distance food delivery service Goldbelly is saving local restaurants by shipping 55,000 cheesesteaks across the country. Meanwhile, Walmart is partnering with NextDoor for a shopping assistance program, and Instacart is hiring 250K more shoppers and adding ‘wellness checks’ to its shopper app.
- Fast food logistics get rewired: Domino’s is hiring more drivers, giving more pizza away to frontline workers, and upping their contactless delivery game with a pizza pedestal (a recyclable throne that carriers place on the ground to keep employees and customers safe). Meanwhile, one Kansas city BBQ joint created its own BBQ vending machine for contact-free eats, and Oscar Meyer is teaching Americans how to barbecue, socially distance style.
- Last week, we highlighted the trend of ‘Sani-Lux’ as clean becomes the new black. This week, that trend continues as Airbnb introduced its new cleaning protocols including 24-hour vacancies between bookings, Hilton formed a partnership around cleaning protocols with the Mayo Clinic and the maker of Lysol, and Marriott announced plans to roll out new technology, including electrostatic sprayers with hospital-grade disinfectant and ultraviolet light technology.
New BOGO Pricing Incentives – Buy one (today), get one/give one back (later): Companies are getting creative to drive consumption today and tomorrow, exploring bond-like structures and new giveback models to keep consumers’ appetites up. And it’s needed, as we see in our latest research that 79% of Americans say, even when the pandemic ends, they are going to save more and spend less.
- Boutique hotels are offering a bonds-like system, with $100 hotel bonds that mature after 60 days to $150 and can be used for a hotel stay that grows in value over time, while other luxury hotels are offering bonus gift card structure for future stays.
- Beer advertisers are pivoting to ask consumers to drink today, for an opportunity to drink it later at a bar. Heineken encourages people to buy a beer to drink later at their favorite bar, and they’ll match each purchase with a donation to the bar. Carlsberg is also encouraging people to ‘adopt a keg’ to earn bar pints in the future.
- Restaurants are also tapping into today’s loyalty to fund tomorrow’s eats: The Dining Bond Initiative, which includes over 500 restaurants worldwide, offers bonds that increase over time so you’ll have more money to spend when the lockdown ends.
- Tesla is trying another value add tactic, boosting its referral program, offering 1,000 miles of free Supercharging to both the owner giving the referral and the new buyer receiving the referral.
Education Gets Re-Valued: The question of higher education and its value alongside the constantly rising student debt in this country is at a time/space face-off. With everything being transferred into the digital space, there has been a reassessment of the extraordinary costs parents and students pay for education, and a potential opportunity to flatten the gap between our brightest teachers and resources through remote learning.
- Four-year colleges may face a loss of up to 20 percent in fall enrollment, SimpsonScarborough, has predicted on the basis of multiple student surveys it has conducted.
- High school seniors are trying to imagine what their futures look like. For example, Mariah Barrera got a full-ride scholarship to Columbia and then coronavirus complicated things. Now, like her peers, she is wondering whether she should stay closer to home, while 1 in 6 high school seniors are at the point of forgoing college entirely this fall.
- To help these teens document what they lost, this photographer took portraits of 500 seniors in high school. Meanwhile, this startup is making millions helping Harvard and other colleges stage virtual commencements.
- Will coronavirus spur a gap year trend? NYU Stern Business School Professor Scott Galloway, predicts massive disruption in higher education and civic duty, citing Google searches for “gap year” are up 69% since March, and traffic to the Gap Year Association is up 25% year to date. Meanwhile, Quartz questions the future in an in-depth piece ‘What does the future of student debt look like”? that examines if this could be the opportunity to rethink what young Americans want, need, and expect from higher education in a way that will provide more opportunity for young people and less debt in the future?
- For those who are still learning, new resources abound. For example, online education company Coursera offers unemployed workers thousands of free courses, Google is helping school teachers with ‘teach at home’, Michelle Obama will read to your children every Monday, and Sesame Street partners with Headspace for Cookie Monster Meditations.
- Education is getting accelerated into the virtual world and with it are new methods such as leveraging augmented reality apps and video games to enhance remote learning. Large institutions are also getting involved: NASA created a videogame so you can help find the world’s coral reef, and MoMA is offering free online courses to learn directly from artists and designers.
- Gen Z’s favorite self-learning platform, YouTube sees a 75% jump in news views, while NBC is currently testing a “Nightly News Kids Edition”, aimed at kids 6 to 16, and CNN partnered with Sesame Street to host a coronavirus town hall for kids.
Hustle-Tainment: The entertainment industry is moving nonstop to fill consumers’ downtime, feeds, and need for escape. And these escapes are especially important to young Americans 18-34, 51% of whom feel annoyed by the lack of personal space and inability to get away from their family (compared 34% of people overall).
- Netflix had its best quarter ever, rolling out nonstop content such as the #1 most-watched movie this week, “Extraction,” starring Chris Hemsworth, promising subscribers it won’t run out of new content while people are stuck at home. Meanwhile, Universal Pictures’ “Trolls World Tour” has made more money in three weeks of digital release than its original did during five months in theaters.
- SNL continues to stay alive online with Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler and parodies about how bored we all are, while the Parks and Rec cast will reunite for an NBC fundraiser special, the Met Opera is throwing a gala concert with smartphones, and – never to be left out – Diddy seeks relevance by doing his own Guided Meditation. YouTube is also airing major film festivals like Sundance, Tribeca Film Festival, Cannes for free, while Playboy goes all digital.
- Last week, we highlighted concertgoers flocking to Minecraft; this week, Travis Scott’s astronomical ‘Fortnite’ tour exploded the idea of what a concert can be, setting a new record with 12.3 million players getting a taste of both new music and the classics.
- In sports, Turner Sports is testing live two-on-two competition events, with a Tiger-Phil rematch, while the next SportsCenter top 10 could feature your at-home trick shot.
- Fashion is also turning to lo(wer)fi, DIY production. In the absence of full-blown photoshoots, Drew Barrymore’s magazine cover was photographed by her 7-year-old daughter, while Zara models shot the latest campaign in their own homes, bringing authenticity consumers have been seeking through social media for years to the fashion world.
- Drink-tainment continues to provide a moment to unwind, as Stanley Tucci demonstrates how to make a flawless Negroni, or you can tune into the Daily Show’s parody version “NegROYnis With Roy.” And if that’s not your thing, try what Eater calls Squirtarita, quarantine’s perfect cocktail.
New Antidotes To Loneliness: Before this pandemic hit, Western societies were already experiencing loneliness to the point that the UK appointed a Minister of Loneliness in 2018, but the pandemic has amplified these intense feelings and new solutions are being developed to bridge the gap.
- From grandkids on demand, to this 17-year is delivering food to boomers in 12 cities, a bus in Brussels is delivering customized messages to great grandparents to make them smile, and Alton Brown invites hundreds of people into his virtual quarantine kitchen each week, people around the world are seeking new ways to find human joy and connection.
- Budweiser remade their iconic ‘Whassup’ ad to address loneliness during the pandemic, Etsy is promoting care packages to show your loved ones you’re thinking of them, and beer subscription services fill the void for drinking buddies.
- As others crave company without Zoom fatigue, there are now silent virtual ‘show and tells’.
500Ft Of Optimism:
- Trial of Gilead’s potential coronavirus treatment running ahead of schedule
- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation directs almost its entire nonprofit resources towards solving this pandemic, and here is how Bill Gates envisions life beyond Coronavirus with Erza Klein.
- Countries around the world are beating this:VietnamandNew Zealandare squashing the coronavirus, displaying signs of hope for the rest of us. China also says all coronavirus patients in Wuhan have now been discharged.
- Sustainability gets a prime-time position: Renewables are now expected to be America’s top electricity source by 2050, and the first two months of 2020 belonged to solar and wind. As Austria is making climate protection a condition for airline bailouts, Harvard sets a path for Net Zero Greenhouse gas within 30 years. Meanwhile, Loop, the reusable-packaging packaged-goods delivery service, is going nationwide and Burberry is rolling out new labeling across all key product categories in a bid to show how each product is meeting certain sustainability requirements.
- NYers gain more personal space: as NYC closes 40 miles of streets, with the ultimate goal calling for 100 miles of “open streets,” largely near parks, as well as widened sidewalks and additional permanent bike lanes.
This week’s mood is dedicated to artists, who never let us down. Read the titles.
See more of Phil Shaw’s work here
That’s it for now. Till next week.