We can’t believe it’s been nearly two months since we started this newsletter. So much has accelerated in this ‘groundhog day’ existence, and yet we see a downshift as businesses start to steady themselves for the long-term marathon we described last week.

This week, we were inspired by these poster artists featured above, especially the idea “let’s make a world where we tell our children about how bad things were before Covid-19.” Thus, we’ve decided to highlight the ways businesses are positioning themselves to sprint ahead, the cultural taboos that were questioned during this time, and macro-shifts in consumer behavior and overall optimism. 

We’ve also decided as we downshift to the next normal that this will be our last newsletter for a while. In case it’s useful, we’ve made a PDF of all previous newsletters (just DM me, and I’ll send you the attachment) and even added a timeline at the bottom of the email to track the trends overtime.

Finally, we’ve found from our recent study that 93% of Americans are interested in non-COVID-related content — are you one of them? We’d love to hear from you what we should do next with this newsletter, please take this super short survey.

As always, we’ve woven Harris’ latest data throughout the trends, highlighted in bold.

Businesses Positioned To Sprint Ahead: In a two-month period, business leaders have transitioned from ‘filling the gaps,’ to ‘action heroes,’ to ‘zonkey hybrids’ and finally into ‘marathoners’ in it for the long-haul, proactively seeking opportunities to sprint ahead in the future as we settle into the next normal. In fact, according to our bi-weekly study with PwC, the COVID-19 CFO Pulse Survey, 72% of CFOs say the pandemic will cause their company to have ‘better resiliency and agility’ in the future. Sowhat’s getting businesses prepared to sprint ahead?

• A sanitized supply chain: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos tells “investors to take a seat” as they reinvest $4B back into improving the health and safety standards of their employees with the potential to create an industry differentiator of the first ‘sanitized supply chain. At the same time, Amazon imagines providing its almost 900K Amazon sellers health insurance and Amazon Care partnered with The Gates Foundation to distribute at-home coronavirus assessment kits. Americans are bullish on the future of Amazon, as 83% predict Amazon will be in a better position post Covid-19. 
• Prioritizing serenity across the workforce: Starbucks quickly pivoted into 100% drive through to protect employees, offered 30 days off and 20 mental health sessions to all employees. HBR highlights ways CEOs today can support employees’ mental health amidst this pandemic. In reaction to the stress facing parents working from home, Google and Microsoft gave out between 12–14 weeks of additional parental leave.Meanwhile, Brian Solis says from now on every company should consider itself a digital healthcare company. Americans are also bullish on Google (76%) and Microsoft (75%), predicting they will be in a better position Covid-19, while 61% are bullish on Starbucks (although that number jumps to 71% for their prime audience: Americans ages 35-49).
• Collaboration over competition:Apple & Google are building an anonymous beacon system to launch in May that will work on every smartphone (on an opt-in basis).
• Redirecting supply Chains: Kroger buys and redirects dairy farmers’ excess milk to food banks. Panera pivoted to selling groceries in less than 3 weeks, and Migrant Kitchen became NYC’s largest restaurant-quality cooking operation, serving 6,000 meals a day 64% of Americans also predict Kroger will be in a better position post Covid-19. 
• Never ending scroll: Personalized content and growing subscriber bases continue to rise. In the last two months, Netflix has released Netflix party, added 16MM subscribers, outpaced its rivals, is working on 200 pieces of content remotely, created a $100MM relief fund, and landed the first theatrical release to Netflix deal. Meanwhile, TikTok has increased its base from teens to major news publications (e.g. Washington Post and CNN) to Dame Judy Dench, resulting in over 2 billion downloads. 79% of Americans predict Netflix will be in a better position post Covid-19, while 73% of Young Americans say the same about TikTok.

Taboos Questioned: In two months, this pandemic has accelerated huge social experiments that were once seen as taboos or ‘nice ideas’ into realities for many Americans. The results are fundamental perceptual and behavioral shifts that will have long-term implications around what life should and will look like post-crisis.

Taboo: Remote working not a practical solution

Today ⇨ Flexi-Work For All: In less than two months, companies have shifted into remote working and are seeing real value in incorporating more flexible workplace strategies in the future. According to our bi-weekly study with PwC, COVID-19 CFO Pulse Survey, 68% of CFOs say crisis-driven transitions to remote work will make their company better in the long run. And over 4 in 10 (43%) report their company is planning to make remote work a permanent option for roles that allow it.

• In fact, JPMorgan reported traders were able to handle as much as three times the normal trading volume in the first quarter, even as 90% of the corporate and investment bank’s staff worked from home, and Barclays says this could be the end of physical locations for company HQ. Meanwhile, Google and Facebook are allowing all employees to continue working remotely throughout 2020.
• In fact, as Quartz points out, WFH policies can contribute to high impact climate change outcomes (e.g. less commutters, less traffic, less travel, etc.) and reduce wasted time, as the average American who drives to work spends 54 hours per year stuck in traffic.
• From our research with Zapier, we found that WFH has it’s benefits as 65% of Americans who have been working remotely feel their productivity has increased, 80% said they can better manage interruptions from coworkers, and 80% enjoy being able to see their family during the day while working from home.
• Even though parents are struggling without childcare/school today, about half desire a more flexible WFH future. 83% of parents were working in offices before Covid-19 (vs 66% of non-parents) and when they think of the future re-opening, 50% want either more flexibility (e.g. only working a couple of days from the office) or want to work from home until it’s completely safe to be close proximity to others.

Taboo ‘Church & State’ separation of work life vs parental life

Today ⇨ Embracing Whole-Self Employees: After two months of WFH, there is no more putting the genie back in the bottle, parents will refuse to go back to the workforce and pretend they aren’t parents. 

• NYT highlights raising children isnot just a personal choice, but a societal need, and what we really need to focus on is the ‘overwork pandemic,’ not the parents who can’t find a balance.
• Women are now the most essential workers in America, and experts argue that this two month period of mothers and fathers working side-by-side at home may lead to a gender role reversal, a shift in gender dynamics in both firms and families, and a shift in domestic duties at home. 
• And it’s to be noted, Dads are trying their best. From our research, we see that dads are more likely than moms to say they have given in to more screen time (56% dads vs 48% moms), rely on more treats/snacks to keep my kids happy (45% dads vs 37% moms), and buying more toys, books or games (40% dads vs 24% moms).

Taboo: Productivity propaganda

Today ⇨ Drawing New Boundaries For Happier Lives: Do more, be more, and show off more of who you are: this productivity propaganda has been a cornerstone of our cultural beliefs for at least the past decade, but it’s also been creating an epidemic of burnout across the population. In fact, last year with Meredith we uncovered that 3 in 4 American women were suffering from burnout and 81% said that ‘American society glorifies being busy.’ Now all Americans are pulling back and reflecting about where their productivity really comes from. 

• Many people say this pandemic provided a much needed break in their lives, especially parents and young Americans. 60% of parents and 58% of young Americans (18-34 yrs old) said they are ‘grateful for the break from work to be at home with my family’ (vs 46% of the general population). 
• While healthy habits have been embraced during the pandemic, we see people are cooking more, eating more fresh meals, meditating more, exercising more, and spending more time with the family, which ultimately will probably make healthier people and likely more productive thinkers. And new rituals are also being created that are good for the body and soul, such as these kids that transformed into restaurateurs to give their parents a once a week ‘date night.’

Taboo: Tech-Lash, rising backlash against tech and social media platforms

Today ⇨ Tech’s Purpose Reignited Around Togetherness: In 2019, we saw a huge rise in tech-lash due to concerns over privacy, social isolation, and alt-news. However, during this crisis, big tech has been repurposed as a bloodline, bringing us closer together and re-introducing us to our neighbors and communities. 

• In the past weeks, we’ve seen the dawn of virtual dinner parties, senior book clubs, house parties, nightclubs, strip clubs, wine tastings, cooking classes, and google docs rallying neighbors around each other, among so many other virtual channels of connection. Our research shows 38% of Americans say their view of the tech industry has become more positive since the start of the outbreak, placing the tech industry in the top five industries that have seen positive shifts since the pandemic.
• Technology platforms have brought together the best and the brightest to fight Covid-19, from NASA’s first global virtual hackathon to scientists across the global working more closely than ever on more than 200 clinical trials. 
• Our data shows that even after “things go back to normal,” 67% of Americans are now more likely to have a virtual happy hour with friends vs going to a bar (33%), nearly three quarters (73%) are more likely to live stream sports at home vs attending live in person (27%), and nearly 8 in 10 (79%) are more likely to watch a movie at home vs going to the movies (21%), even though over 4 in 10 miss going. 

Taboo: Higher education costs outpacing students ability to pay for college

Today ⇨ Higher Education Revalued & Democratized: There has been a rising reassessment of the extraordinary costs parents and students pay for education, and now there is a growing opportunity to flatten the gap between our brightest teachers and resources through remote learning.

• Scott Galloway predicts the post-pandemic future will entail partnerships between the largest tech companies in the world and elite universities (e.g. MIT@Google. iStanford. HarvardxFacebook), and right now you can take over 450 free courses offered by Ivy League colleges online. In 2019, edtech investments soared past $18.66 billion but now are projected to reach anywhere from $350-400 billion by 2025. This might be the tipping point of democratization and a new approach to think about financing college, especially as student debt rose to $1.6 trillion dollars.
• And today’s college students facing huge bills and tuition costs are asking for refunds as Zoom classes alone can’t justify tuition prices ranging from $40K-$70K. In fact, by this fall, it’s predicted that undergraduate enrollment for four-year institutions could decline by 20%.

Taboo: Telehealth is a distant future

Today ⇨ Telehealth Transformation Is Here: Telemedicine was always seen as that platform that was a bit untouchable: how would it work, who would figure it out, etc.? But now, in light of current realities, we might have entered a world of wondering why we ever waited in the doctor’s office. 

• From our latest research we see nearly a third (32%) of Americans have tried telehealth, with 15% now using telehealth for the first time during the pandemic. Over 8 in 10 (82%) of those who have used telehealth services say they love/like it. Even nonusers find the idea of telehealth services appealing with six in ten (61%) saying they like/love the idea of using telehealth services. Of those using telehealth during the pandemic, three quarters (76%) are very/somewhat likely to continue using these types of services. 
• During Q1 of 2020, global VC funding in digital health firms hit a record $3.6 billion, pumping fresh capital into those now confronting the pandemic head-on. FutureLoop audience predicts Apple will lead in-home healthcare practices by 2026. Meanwhile, the FCC funded a $200M telehealth initiative during this timeframe, Forward launched ‘Forward At Home’ COVID-19 at-home-kit, and companies like Uber partnered with telehealth company Ro to offer free health screenings for drivers.

Macro-Lifestyle Implications: As taboos are taken off the table, major lifestyle shifts are happening overnight, these are the trends we plan to watch as we continue through 2020 and beyond:

• Sani-Lux will replace pure convenience: Ultimate luxury will be seamless transactions and services that over deliver on everything that reflects sanitization. While in the general market, consumers will face more trade-offs between convenience, sanitization and price. There will be new signals of sanitization such as individual capsule-like dining, sneeze guards between airline seats,  ‘hygiene managers’ and the implementation of digital lines so you don’t have to wait close to other customers. Airlines and hotels will only be deemed as high quality as their policies or ‘clean certification’ (unlike United who recently filled middle seats).

• Open offices shift towards spaced-out-serenity units: As WSJ documents, the future of office space will be a mix of musical chairs, one person elevators, and one way hallways until there is a solution for Covid-19. And this change is reversing decades long push for ‘open office’ design. Ultimately, this might be a good thing, as many studies pre-Covid highlighted the productivity drain of open office environments for all workers, and especially women. From our data, we see 61% of people are concerned about going back into the office, but that number has decreased by 4% from last week. And from our PwC study, two-thirds of CFOs are “very confident” their company can create a safe workplace for employees to return to work. 

• A beauty break, self-care prioritized over everything: During these last two months, people have basked in the glow of not-giving-a-crap about their appearance, while reprioritizing their more superficial beauty habits into interfacing wellness habits. In fact, LA Times writer Jessica Roy, says, “I have been blissfully, gleefully throwing off the shackles of worrying about what I eat or how much I ate or whether I’ve made it to spin class recently. Prioritizing a gentler style of self-care moving away from punishment to movement, sleep, and meditation.” We saw the polish come off celebrities as they went make-up less, joining the 48% of women who say they aren’t applying makeup at all right now. Virtual skincare consultants are telling consumers they need less products, while make-up sales have gone down by 22% and beauty filters have gone up. Many are prioritizing self-care habits, with 25% of Americans using more wellness apps (e.g., meditation, fitness apps) since the outbreak, including 36% of parents.

• DIT (Do-it-together)- DIY challenges at the core of emerging communities: Similar to 2008, but accelerated due to additional free time, tastemaker communities are popping up overnight based on their ability to teach each other a skill, become more self-reliant, and connect over self-made creations. Whether it’s the rise of sourdough bread makers, community cookbooks, fitness fanatics, a sewing army making face-masks, or creative parents crowdsourcing new activities for quarantine, this is a trend we see only gaining in popularity. In fact, this week alone as spring starts we see the rise in the quarantine garden- seeds are the new sourdough. 

• Restrictions Fuel Creativity: In a two month period, all late night entertainment was rewired to be filmed from home: SNL figured out how to produce its entire show remotely, which actually gave the show a new life. John Krasinski launched Some Good News, featuring top notch celebrities and even reunited “The Office” cast for a Zoom Wedding. Musical festivals pivoted virtually to draw millions of fans to concerts on platforms such as Twitch, Minecraft, and YouTube. Both Netflix and CBS are producing series and episodes remotely.

Macros Moments Of Optimism: During this time, we’ve seen – and continue to applaud – an outpouring of compassion and a resilience of human spirit. Here are a few of the highlights:

• Frontline workers are gaining the respect and gratitude they’ve always deserved: NYC erupts every night at 7pm in horns, screams, and gratitude claps. Essential workers are up for bills in the Senate aimed at almost$2K in pay raises and $25,000 in student debt relief. Nike donates thousands of sneakers designed exclusively for healthcare workers’ 12-hour daysand JetBlue donates 100,000 roundtrip flights to healthcare workers. 
• We can dramatically impact the quality of our climate: We’ve witnessed air pollution reduced quickly and radically across the world.We’ve seen the largest Arctic ozone layer close. We’ve seen cities likeSeattle and New York propose permanently close streets to make room for more green spaces. We’ve seen as many as 2.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions prevented from being released—about 8% of what was the estimated total for the year. We’ve seen for the first time, renewable energy in the US generated more electricity than coal on every day in April 2020. We’ve seen Americans become more open minded about meat alternatives; in fact, 58% of Americans say they plan to eat more meat alternatives during the rest of 2020. And ESG investing has shined during this recent market turmoil, suggesting social responsible investing has long-term staying power.

• Hope continues to drive us forward: 76% of Americans who have donated to a new charity during this time say they plan to keep doing so. Fromrainbows of hope, to bad dad jokes, to empathetic movie theater signs, Americans want to see stories of hope and inspiration (41% and 39%, respectively), like this artist at age 107 who beat both covid-19 and the spanish flu. According to the authors of The Longevity Project, those who live the longest“didn’t see their stress as meaningless — it seemed to fuel them. And this ability to think about the hard things we go through as ultimately beneficial — whether to ourselves or to people we care about or to society at large — seems to be important.” 

• Covid-19 treatment highlights: There is a hope that llamas will become Coronavirus heroes. Meanwhile, doctors are cloning antibodies for new treatment options, New York is launching free antibody tests, the FDA approves both saliva testing and CRISPR gene-editing, and triple combination therapy shows promise for COVID-19 patients with less severe illnesses. Masks are proven to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, and now you can transparently track your state’s actual Covid-19 progress here. An army of 100,000 contract tracers are needed to help the US reopen and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is offering a free course to get you started. 

Thank you for riding with us every week over the past two months. Based on the results of the survey, we will aim to produce content that is most relevant to our readers in the future. 

As the ultimate sign of hope, I will be out on maternity leave soon, dedicating my attention to a brave little one born in these times. So if you have any follow up questions please follow up with my partner Abbey Lunney- abbey.lunney@harrisinsights.com running thought leadership and trends at Harris.

That’s it for now. 🙂 Stay safe, be well, and look out for the good news.

The post Imagining A Better Tomorrow, The Final Pulse Of Covid-19 appeared first on Libby Rodney.

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The post Pulse of Covid-19: Summary Of Trends On A Timeline appeared first on Libby Rodney.

Did you know the Chinese phrase for ‘crisis’ is formed of two characters loosely referring to ‘danger’ and ‘pivotal point of potential opportunity’? This juxtaposition is how we are living our lives today. From reopenings to reconfigurations, we are desperately working to move forward without tumbling backward. So, how do we start building towards what’s next?

A huge and often difficult part of moving ahead is focus, prioritizing what you do and don’t need to pay attention to. A standout piece of leadership advice comes from General Stanley McChrystal’s on Reid Hoffman’s Masters of Scale podcast, where he states, “If you have twenty priorities, you don’t have any. If you’ve got three, you’ve got priorities. The real courage in a leader is not in telling people what to do. It’s telling them what it’s okay not to do.” 

As we learned during the 2008 recession, it’s not just leaders making priorities moving forward; it’s consumers as well. As people are forced to tighten their belts, they begin to reprioritize and reorient their spending around the things they love and that are most critical to their lifestyles. As we witnessed during the last downturn, brands that spent time deeply understanding their audiences paved the way for the rise of today’s billion-dollar brands like Glossier, Warby Parker, and Everlane.

With that in mind, we look into reopening strategies, tastemaker communities, and other rising trends that might provide sparks of inspiration, insight, and levity as we move ahead.

This week we’ve woven Harris’ latest data throughout the trends, highlighted in bold

Businesses In Beta-Configurations: Businesses and leaders start to perform massive social experiments and beta tests around what the reopening and reconfiguration of our daily lives will look and feel like. And this is just the beginning, as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently commented, “As Covid-19 impacts every aspect of our work and life, we have seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.”

• A diagram of beta plans: New Zealand Prime minister Jacinda Ardern imagines a world of “travel bubbles” as a measured way of opening international travel restrictions, starting with their neighbor Australia. Meanwhile, Quartz features the world’s best battle plans to overcome the economic crisis to guide reopening strategies, and in the Netherlands, McDonald’s has created a trial concept restaurant adapted for social distancing. In the meantime, Thai Airways is giving people airline miles for staying at home, using geolocation data to verify their claims. 
• Sticking to contactless: Americans are looking forward to shopping after the pandemic but plan to keep it contactless. Mastercard reported that contactless payments have jumped 40% as shoppers fear germs on cash and credit cards. While our data shows 49% of Americans say they will shop online more than before the pandemic as their area reopens (compared to 15% who say they will shop more in-store). To help businesses reopen safely and meet consumers’ expectations, Shopify adds a curbside pickup option to their revamped point of sale technology.
• Deploying testing & mask distribution: Kroger expands coronavirus testing for employees with free self-administered kits and drive-thru appointments, while Whole Foods plans on handing out free face masks to customers to keep their employees safe. And, in Hong Kong, free face mask vending machines are being installed across the city.
• Sani-Lux expectations continue to rise: As businesses reopen, more Americans say they would require extreme cleaning (57%, +4% increase), mandatory masks (50%, +13% increase), and mandatory spaced seating (46%, +11% increase) from 3 weeks ago, to feel comfortable returning to normal activities.
• Car-as-a-sanctuary becomes a top priority: From mental health technology to invisibility cloaks, Bloomberg examines how luxury automotive brands are responding to Covid-19. In our research we see almost 1 in 5 (19%) of Americans plan to buy a car once things return to normal and businesses reopen. And to make Americans feel safe visiting a dealership, Americans expect dealers to sanitize vehicles between test drives (36%) and offer free, contactless delivery or pickup of the car (32%). Over 1 in 4 would like online-only interaction to negotiate financing and trade-in (26%) as well as virtual car showings (25%).
• And finally, revenge spending is heating up across the board as consumers dream of a life outside of their homes:

Emerging Tastemaker Communities Bubbling Up: Living life in the long-tail, people are reorienting themselves around the little joys in life and connecting to like-minded passion communities across the social web and world.

• Band of Bakers: Sourdough isn’t just a type of bread, it’s a serenity-now self-sanity movement. And chefs across the country are teaching everyone how to ‘make loaves, not war.’ In fact, this chef in DC built a community around bread by giving away 500 sourdough starters, while the Phantom Baker in San Francisco has given away over 650. Even celebrities, from Huge Jackman to Jake Gyllenhaal, are confessing their obsession with making their own bread. This is causing grocery stores to portion out flour from industrial-sized bags to deal with increasing demand and leading to new start-ups that are capitalizing on this emerging tastemaker community, such as Sourd.io, a fitness tracker for your sourdough starter.
• Urban Withdrawalist: Once hardcore urbanites are starting to question their loyalty to big cities and imagining their lives elsewhere, not only for safety but also for newfound sanity as well. Our data, as reported in Fast Company, shows nearly 4 in 10 (38%) urbanites are considering moving to less densely populated areas in the wake of the pandemic. And 3 in 10 Americans say they have recently browsed real estate websites for homes/apartments to rent or buy. The NYTimes questions if this follows a deeper, more demographic trend, while we ponder what the future of home remote self-sustaining homes could look like.
• Consciously Cool Heads: Finding positive, alternative, and spiritual ways to connect to like-minded people, many are moving through this pandemic while improving their mental health and overall collective consciousness: Over 1 in 4 young Americans (18-34 yr olds) report meditating to cope with stress and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic (26%). This Buddhist teacher reminds us it’s okay to be okay during a pandemic, while Astrology blossoms into a $2 Billion coping mechanism. Muji is hosting free online calligraphy and meditation classes to help people find their zen, while this site lets you write a letter to your future self to reflect on this unprecedented downtime. For a different kind of reflection, Ouija boards have staged a spirited comeback during the pandemic.
• Sound Soothers: Sounds soothe the souls of certain audiophiles, from Moe’s ASMR queso relaxation videos, featuring 8 hours of chip-dipping footage to listening to new apps bringing you the sounds of busy coffee shops and restaurants to fill the void. In our data, we see that 56% of Americans say they are listening to music to cope with stress and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic, including 67% of 18-34 year-olds. 
• TikTok Tastemakers: From TikTok dancers to push-up challenges, it’s an addicting community of like-minded tastemakers wanting to create and share a point of view to the challenge collective. Recent examples include the Instagram pillow challenge with Halle Berry to this nail-biting challenge that encourages users to give themselves bangs live to Gen Z’s parents throwing caution to the wind and dancing it up for sweet bonding moments with their teens. Even pro-dancers are now joining in and teachers are getting involved, propelling TikTok into a new high of 2 billion downloads this week. 

Reconfiguring Entertainment For Release: As a culture, we’ve recognized we are going to be in some form of social distancing for a while, and people are starting to get creative and rewire entertainment around this new reality, finding joys and moments of levity in new outlets.

• Happy Cinco de Mayo:Coronavirus pinatas are the latest form of stress release. 
• Social entertainment reimagined around the world: The new Saturday night shows how Americans are re-creating the weekend, while Madrid is opening balcony cinemas and the UK introduces the first socially distant street orchestra. In Germany, sports fans are placing cutouts of themselves to fill empty stadiums, while Japan has created escape rooms for when you need a break from your significant other and former Olympic athletes across the world are holding pole vault competitions from their gardens.
• The curtain never closes: Broadway-bound musical Sing Street’ reinvented itself as a Facebook Live Zoom experience. Netflix is releasing a series produced completely remotelyand CBS’s All Rise has become the first U.S. scripted television series to adapt the coronavirus pandemic by producing an episode remotely.
• Podcasts are also having a moment, with weekly downloads up 20% YOY so far this year and 23% of Americans saying they are listening to podcasts more (+4% increase from 2 weeks ago). Vox created podcast series just for kids to explore today’s new world from their perspective, warning “adults should listen at their own risk.”

Moments of Relief

• NYTimes’ One Bright Thing: Reader Edition in which 300 people sent in submissions of their own luminous moments. USNS Comfort departed New York, Michelle Obama is hosting a virtual graduation for the Class of 2020 featuring Barack Obama, Lady Gaga, and Alicia Keys.
• The largest Arctic ozone hole ever recorded is now closed, while a new study points out that ‘green recovery’ methods can revive virus-hit economies and tackle climate change at the same time. Meanwhile, Tom Cruise is escaping planet earth to film his next movie with NASA.
• Parents are finding new inspiration to keep kids busy like this mom’s quarantine driveway workout, or this family that created a ‘silly walking zone’ that inspired the whole neighborhood to be silly for a moment.
• In France, it’s now a patriotic duty to eat more cheese, while in Belgium it’s their duty to eat more fries. And in America it’s our duty to just indulge in this Denver Zoo baby rhino cam, enough said.

This week’s mood is dedicated to parents, who have never appreciated teachers more. Happy Cinco De Mayo y’all. 25% of Americans say they are drinking more during the pandemic (+6% increase from 2 weeks ago). 

That’s it for now. Till next week.

The post Focus & Prioritizations, The Pulse Of Covid-19 appeared first on Libby Rodney.

But, even as companies are reinventing themselves overnight today, the million dollar question is: what does the ‘new normal’ look like in 12 to 18 months from now? It’s a question business leaders and Americans themselves are wrestling with; in fact according to our recent Harris Poll, over 6 in 10 Americans say, ‘once the pandemic is over and things return to normal’ they imagine their lives will be ‘somewhat to very different’ especially in the following categories: ‘travel’ (66%), ‘social activity’ (64%), and ‘shopping’ (60%).

One thing is for certain, there will be massive change and the future, in all likelihood, won’t be a winner takes all game. Meaning we won’t go back to the normal we once knew (e.g., working primarily from offices), nor will everything suddenly be tipped into a virtual future (e.g., only working remotely). Beyond pivots, it’s more likely there will be new shades of grey and hybrids that form from our old lives merged with the new values, attitudes, and behaviors created by the pandemic. Just like the Zonkey – a rare Zebra/Donkey hybrid recently born in Kenya – leaders, companies, and individuals will evolve to become unique combinations of themselves, leveraging the past and present to emerge with strength and resilience, a phenomenon we call ‘Zonkeynomics.’

We predict those who leverage Zonkeynomics will win in the long-run, because as they both lean out and step back to examine their options, they will gain focus around the values that make them truly distinctive, reorient around building true fans, and rebalance towards solutions that ultimately make them stronger.

To leverage Zonkeynomics, companies will need to embrace the following principles:

1. Leading With Humility & Shared Outcomes Over Orders

Humility and humanity at the forefront, rallying the troops with empowered decision-making frameworks not the orders. Zonkey leaders are mapping out their constantly evolving circumstances, impossible choices, fears, and critical decisions in real-time with their employees, customers, and stakeholders. From Marriott CEO, Arne Sorenson’s emotionally gripping Covid-19 crisis video, to frank and honest PowerPoint updates from Andrew Cuomo.

Now is the time when business leaders will create the next evolution of their companies, not by driving the ship themselves but by equipping teams with the right maps to do so. Bonded together with their employees through humility, fear and shared values, Zonkey leaders will create clear indicators of short-term health metrics and long-term benefits of navigating this crisis as an agile, human team.

2. Doubling Down On Servicing & Cultivating Your Top Fans

In good economic times, consumers can afford to be less discerning about how they spend their money; however, when people are forced to tighten their belts, they also have to tighten their choices, focusing on the things that they love or that are critical to their lifestyle needs. For brands this means that if you’re not loved or critical during these times, you can fall by the wayside. 

Zonkeynomics means evolving into a stronger company by getting rigorous about understanding your best customers – what’s driving them today, where they are headed tomorrow, and how you can best service and anticipate their needs. For example, during the 2008 recession, Whole Foods Market (once known as the ‘whole paycheck’ grocer) faced economic pressure to join the industry in race-to-the-bottom pricing wars, but instead evolved on a new path that focused on what their best customers wanted most: high quality, organic food from a source they could trust, at a price they could afford. To embody a strategy focused on serving their best customers first, Whole Foods focused on building out its private label brand ‘365 Everyday Value’, which not only reinforced their point of distinction and value in the market even as the economy improved, but also improved their bottom line – by 2017, the private label generated 15% of Whole Foods’ annual revenue.

Meanwhile, the 2008 recession was a breeding ground for new entrants to disrupt the market based on their deep knowledge and cultivation of particular audiences. These brands spent the time, effort and investment in key lifestyle details to own their audiences better than any competitor in the space. Turning fans into micro-influencers paved the way for the rise of today’s billion dollar brands like Glossier, Warby Parker, and Everlane. 

For large established brands to new challenger upstarts, companies that take this moment as an opportunity to understand their biggest fans and focus on better servicing them from a point of love or critical need are best poised to come out of this stronger.

3. Leaning Into The Silver Lining Confirmation Bias

What business leaders and employees pay attention to matters, especially during this crucial time where companies are actively evolving. Traditionally viewed as a blind spot, confirmation bias, or the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories, has potential to serve companies during this time.  This starts by doing a temperature check, what is your organization focusing on? Is it the silver linings and potential opportunities to thrive 18 months from now, or is your organization drowning itself in the sea of despair? 

Zonkeynomics recognizes the reality we’re in is a full blown marathon, not a sprint, and it’s crucial that employees see their role in the marathon. If your employees think that there is little they can do to help the company move forward, they will remain stuck in survival mode, but creating a silver lining  mindset means reshifting our focus to finding and seeking out the possibilities in this incredibly difficult time. For example, Amazon continues to seek silver linings, taking on a new business model that focuses on providing its almost 900,000 sellers with health insurance options.

Such silver lining confirmation bias is an opportunity for each of us to challenge ourselves in new ways. It can give permission for leaders and employees to dream a bit through today’s harsh reality, allowing ourselves to ask questions like: How can I help? What excites me? What should our company do differently to become a stronger, more impactful business?

The post Beyond the pivot, the future is Zonekeynomics appeared first on Libby Rodney.

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.

The post Marathon Mindset, The Pulse Of Covid-19 appeared first on Libby Rodney.

I don’t think it’s just happenstance that this week my Spotify Discover Weekly first track is titled “Where are we going?” by Donald Byrd, a 1973 Jazz track with lyrics like, “Tell me, where are we going? Oh, what’s the future showin’? Oh, where are we headed?” Aren’t these the million-dollar questions of the moment? 

One thing is for certain: it’s not going to be an all or nothing equation; instead, it’s more likely there will be new creations and norms that form from our old lives merged with new values, attitudes, and behaviors we’ve seen during this pandemic.

Just like the Zonkey – a rare Zebra/Donkey– leaders, companies, and individuals will evolve to become new and unique combinations of themselves, leveraging the past and present to emerge with strength and resilience. With that in mind, let’s look into what combinations of new and old are evolving in the market as a source of insight, inspiration, and maybe even a point of levity.

This week we’ve woven Harris’ latest data throughout the trends, highlighted in bold

Leaders Shift Into Zonkey Mode: Confronted by disruption, leaders are asking themselves, “ How should we change and adapt to the times?” This level of responsibility is forcing businesses to reimagine how they can deliver value today – and consumers are watching. For example, Did they Help?, a site run by volunteers in the UK, documents actions companies are taking today ranking them as “zeros” or “heroes” in relief efforts. Here’s how we see companies pivoting to ‘hero’ status:

• How do companies pivot when people move from FOMO (fear of missing out) to FOGO (fear of going out)? AirBnb launches virtual experiences, so you can take meditation classes with sheep. Lean Startup author Eric Ries, explains why more businesses need to be asking questions like Airbnb- e.g. How do I provide a new service, using my existing assets and infrastructure? Amazon imagines a new business model, helping provide its almost 900K Amazon sellers health insurance options. And Uber leverages its infrastructure to launch Uber Connect, a delivery service to send care packages to loved ones, while researchers at Mount Sinai in NYChave gone mobile, starting to track volunteers for COVID-19 symptoms via text (to join text COVID to 64722).
• Meanwhile, in a time where the digital divide has never been greater, closed libraries across the U.S. are reimagining their services to offer parking lot wi-fi and Austin is rolling out 110 school buses equipped with wi-fi for neighborhoods with limited access.
• ‘Goliaths’ are offering ‘Davids’ life rafts, as LVMH sets up a fund to support young designers, Anna Wintor and CFDA raised $4.1 million to help small designers survive. Meanwhile, big tech tries to even the playing field for small business owners; for example, YouTube launches free DIYTool for brands to create short video ads, while Instagram launches free buttons to help restaurants increase delivery, gift cards, and donations.
• Leaders are zagging when others zig: Ireland quadruples WHO contributions after the U.S. halts funding. Forbes points out that women leaders aren’t just a nice-to-have but a necessity, as the common factor for the countries with the best coronavirus responses. 

Gearing Up For A New Job Market: In the past four weeks, a total of 22 million Americans have filed jobless claims. The next phase is figuring out what’s next and helping Americans get back on their feet. Of those who have been furloughed, 24% say they believe they will be rehired in 1 to 2 months, while one third it will be 3 to 6 months (36%), and a similar number anticipate it taking 6 months to 1 year (30%).

• WSJ highlights how HR managers have had to move to virtual coffee dates and Zoom interviews amid the lockdown. Meanwhile, P2P clothing rental company Wardrobe is offering free luxury outfits for women interviewing right now. In Germany, hotels pivot to offer Work-From-Hotel oasis, while this beauty line has emerged to protect your face from increased screen time
• To help Americans get back up on their feet, Candor has made an exhaustive and dynamic list of who is hiring right now, while Edtech startup Springboard is offering a weekly career coaching seminar for free to help job seekers prepare for a “post-pandemic economy.” Meanwhile, Andrew Yang and Pope Francis propose seriously considering Universal Basic Income in the wake of the global pandemic.

Rewired Sports Arenas: Sports leagues in the U.S. and around the world are working to figure out how to build the excitement and experience of watching sports, without stadiums and arenas packed with fans. And this is a relatively urgent pursuit: Nearly half of Americans say they miss watching sports on TV (45%) and attending sporting events in person (49%).

• The NBA says it’s developing a streaming service with Microsoft that will “transform” how fans experience the league, leveraging personalization, AI and gamification. Meanwhile, MLB has a crazy contingency plan to get the season going that includes a functional Biodome-like setting in Arizona, and the NFL is in discussions to play in empty or partially filled stadiums (a move supported by 41% of Americans). In Finland, the pro hockey league has restarted via eSports, taking their championships virtual.
• 6.3 million sports fans got their fix through Michael Jordan’s documentary series The Last Dance, which relays “The Untold Story of Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bull,” setting a record for a documentary airing on ESPN.  
• The NFL Draft may get rewired, with data leveraging technology to extract performance data about college players from their game film, which is especially useful as scouts haven’t been able to watch players in person.
• In Taiwan, the baseball league restarted with robots and mannequin ‘fans’ in seats. Meanwhile in North America, 2 out of the 4 major leagues may potentially aggregate “crowd noise” from at-home spectators for real-time use in telecasts of sporting events.  Americans want to see sanitation upgrades before safety attending a live sporting event again, such as cleaning services guaranteeing hygienic wiping down of seats (43%); hand sanitizer at every seat (40%); mandatory masks for food vendors (39%); stadium seating configured for social distancing (35%); and maximum capacity limits to ensure 6-feet between patrons and staff (35%).

Sani-Lux Travel: What happens when sanitization becomes the ultimate act of luxury service?

• Luxury hotels that have pivoted to service frontline workers are shifting their service models to prioritize sanitation, offering new ‘sanitization’ standards like 72-hour deep clean gaps between users. Industry travel experts believe consumers will need new sanitation guarantees, policies, and crystal clear communication to feel safe traveling again. 
• Our latest data shows that, for Americans to feel safe flying again, they will want hygienic wiping down of seats (55%); hand sanitizer packets handed out with snacks (54%); mandatory masks on the plane for passengers and crew (46%); required temperature tests for passengers and crew (45%), and planes configured for social distancing (e.g., no middle seats) (45%).
• In the meantime, people are traveling through their own creative portals, such as thisAustralian family that recreated a 15-hour holiday flight from their living room, while these travelers recreated their best travel memories from home.

Permission To Chill: A time for our greatest minds to come together and reimagine what the world should look like for the better as we emerge. 52% of Americans say they have felt grateful for the break from work to be at home with their family or by themselves since the stay-home orders have gone into effect (up 4% from last week).

• WIRED talks to urban planning experts who believe this would be a great time to reimagine citiesto be more pedestrian and bike-friendly. Meanwhile, almost a third of Americans (29%) say they are likely to move out of densely populated areas and toward rural areas once the pandemic ends.
• Permission to chill hits pop culture as we see why sitting on the couch is my new favorite hobby, and we should embrace “Wuliao” and treat downtime like the privilege it is. The WSJ documents how Animal Crossing has become coronavirus therapy, and now you can even make your own Quaran-zine!
• Life from a windowsill: in quarantine, the a new pastime is budding – growing vegetable scraps on windowsills  – while 17 artists capture a surreal New York from their windows.
• Hacking our mindset: Yale’s happiness expert says ‘fresh-start energy’ can help you create new meaningful traditions, while a Harvard Business School professor provides proven hacks to increase your happiness. Meanwhile, the Icelandic Forest Service recommends hugging trees while you can’t hug people.

Low-Pro-tainment: Entertainment gets permission to go low production, fail fast, and try new things while Hollywood is locked down.

• John Krasinki’s new YouTube show, Some Good News, continues to bring low production, high-spirited vibes to the internet and, this time, Brad Pitt joins him to deliver the weather. He is also throwing virtual prom parties with Billie Eilish and the Jonas Brothers for high school students. Meanwhile, everyone is invited to a virtual happy hour at Downton Abbey and Cardi Binterviews Bernie Sanders on Instagram Live, talking politics, pandemics and manicures.

• TikTok gets weirder the more we’re in quarantine: we’re watching makeup artists lip-syncing to John Mulaney, while parents learn TikTok dances with their kids and Judi Dench joins the fun with her grandson, #priceless. 
• eFestivals are on the rise, as Minecraft is throwing music festivals and thousands are showing up, andCoachella’s new documentary with live music and star-studded interviews is now available on YouTube for free. 

The Messy Work/Life Exposed & Accepted: There is no more sweeping the mess of work/life balance under the rug. Many employees have families and finally aren’t apologizing for it, especially as more Americans work from home. 

• Companies are pivoting their responses in meaningful ways beyond empathy, Microsoft is giving all parents 12 weeks of Covid-parental leave, while Google is now giving 14 weeks. In Australia, one million families will receive free childcare as part of coronavirus relief.

• Women are now the most essential workers in America: One in 3 jobs held by women have been designated as essential, according to the NYT. Brianna Wiest from Forbes argues that it might create a gender role reversal of the century. CNN cites that, as millions of dads have suddenly been forced to stay home with their kids, this historic moment could forever shift dynamics in both firms and families, leading to greater gender equality down the road. Meanwhile, women business owners say simply being at home and bearing witness to day-to-day invisible work can have a sizable impact on how men split domestic duties.
• And Dads are trying their best, from our research we see that dads are more likely than moms to say they have given in to more screen time (56% dads vs 48% moms), rely on more treats/snacks to keep my kids happy (45% dads vs 37% moms), and buying more toys, books or games (40% dads vs 24% moms).

Bots On The Frontline: When does Hollywood’s imagination and sci-fi hypotheticals become our reality? They’ve imagined the future of robots, drones, and AI, and now we may be at the tipping point of adoption out of necessity. 81% of Americans approve of large technology companies helping to trace coronavirus cases to monitor exposure (vs. 19% who disapprove). Even the director of Contagion, Steven Soderbergh, will be the one who will lead the entertainment industry coronavirus committee.

• Drone usage gets ramped up: Ghana turns to drones to enable faster coronavirus testing, while these drones in Italy take temperatures and issue fines. 
• Thermal detection gets hotter: General Motors and Amazon turn to thermal cameras to detect coronavirus spread in warehouses and Whole Foods. 
• Robots to the rescue: in Wuhan, they experimented with a bot-only ward, while in Singapore they created the XDbot that can disinfect surfaces very quickly. In the U.S., robots are now being used to take real-time inventory of grocery stores, while in Japan, robots were used to replace university students in Zoom graduation ceremony.

Finding Light in the Darkness: The ultimate Zonkey: finding the human spirit of ingenuity and relief in times of crisis. 

• Not only are healthcare workers saving our lives (THANK YOU), but they are also celebrating the lives they’ve saved as well, while these national guards perform the Cupid Shuffle, and this golden retriever pitches in offering virtual therapy for frontline workers.
• Love is not lost, New Yorkers’ can now officially get married via Zoom, and, if your wedding was postponed due to the pandemic, Busch is offering a free year’s supply of beer.
• Age is just a mindset for this 99-year-old veteran who raised over $23MM for the UK’s healthcare system by walking in his garden, while this 93 woman re-established her book club on Zoom.
• Individuals go big in their giving, Michael Che of ‘S.N.L.’ honors his grandmothers’ passing by paying rent for 160 N.Y.C. families in her building, while Colin Kaepernick provides COVID-19 Relief for communities of color. This bakery customer spent $1,000 on single doughnut, while a man in Iowa spent $82,000 on gift cards and sent them to every home in his town.
• We’re no longer bowling alone, communities are coming together, New York saw a 288% increase in volunteers, people are belting “New York, New York” out of their windows, and communities are bonding together creating an exponential number of mutual aid volunteer Google Docs. 
• Social distancing gets visualized around the world, from chalk graffiti in India to an ‘alligator length’ in Florida, and even animals are practicing it.

That’s it for now. Till next week.

The post The Next Normal Will Be Zonkeys, The Pulse Of Covid-19 appeared first on Libby Rodney.

What’s giving you hope right now? This is one of the 20 new greetings author Warren Berger says we should consider instead of ‘how are you?’ in these intense times. So what’s giving us hope: the idea that ‘acts of kindness’ went from a luxury to a state of necessity. Two months ago ‘surprise and delight’ was just a marketing tactic and now it’s a bloodline for society. And while the media doesn’t have the time or manpower to focus on all of it, there are thousands of acts of kindness happening daily pulling humanity closer together. In this time of despair, leaders of all kinds are getting out of the drama of their own lives and building the collective resilience in each other.

With that in mind, let’s look into what’s emerging in the market and how companies, individuals, and communities are leading into the unknown as a source of insight, inspiration, and maybe even a point of levity.

This week we’ve woven Harris’ latest data throughout the trends, highlighted in bold.

Leading For The Long-Term: Leaders are stepping up and trying to slowly piece together the fragmented American psyche with ‘safety and security’ signals, policies and commitments that help Americans reimagine a world where they can safely emerge and plan for their future again. 88% of Americans say they have higher perceptions of companies that are donating money, supplies or employee’s time to aid relief in communities.

• In a potentially giant step forward for COVID-19 tracking, Google and Apple put their differences aside, partnering to create a contact tracing technology system. From a functionality POV, Google will show virtual care options more prominently in search results to make it easier to find telehealth services, while Apple Maps will soon display COVID-19 testing sites. 
• Apple additionally launched a $50MM music relief fund for indie labels, to help keep indie artists afloat, joining others like Spotify, SoundCloud and Live Nation in pledges to help the music industry.
• Jack Dorsey pledges over a quarter of his wealth ($1B+) to provide relief to Covid-19, with a nonprofit initiative called Start Small, which is being transparently tracked through Google Docs. Tyler Perry is also chipping in, paying senior-hour groceries at 44 Krogers in Atlanta and 29 in New Orleans.
• USAA gives customers 20% credit on auto premiums for the next two months aligning with Americans’ desires: 88% of Americans report having positive perceptions of a company that allows customers to forgo payments for up to 6 months or offers lower interest rates or other programs. 
• Delta extends elite membership status until 2021, and Mary Brown’s Chicken & Taters, a Canadian chicken chain, is paying to take down newspapers’ paywalls.

Retail Rearranged: Non-essential retail, for the most part, is being put on hold, as government and policies prioritize essential items, supply chains, and social distancing. Despite retailers boarding up their windows, it’s one of the top things consumers want to get back to, in fact, 67% of consumers say they miss shopping in stores since Covid-19 shutdowns. Additionally, Americans believe retailers should be granted some financial relief, with 76% of Americans saying that large national retailers should be allowed to postpone rent payments if they cannot afford it due to the coronavirus, even if they remain open for business.

• The need for safety is – at least temporarily – rearranging design in big-box retailers with one-way aisles, touchless payments, and Plexiglas shields. Meanwhile, many are also seeing shifts in merchandise as some states have required big-box retailers to only sell essential items, blocking non-essential items to online-only delivery or curbside pick-up. Many Americans are calling for adjusted logistics, including mandatory masks for workers and patrons (37%), spacing out of seating (35%), and occupancy limits (34%). 1 in 4 go so far as to say they would like to see thermal testing of the facility (25%).
• Amazon has delayed ‘Prime Day’ until at least August (i.e., back-to-school season), hoping by that time things consumers will be ready to spend, but the National Retail Federation warns there may be a dip in imports impacting the fall shopping season. The Gap has canceled its summer orders and is saving some of its inventory for a 2021 launch. In the meantime, this startup is creating free virtual storefronts for retailers to create a remote shopping experience from home.
• WFH has shifted retailers into selling ‘Zoom’ outfits and WFH comfort bundles; the NYTimes covers men wanting to look ‘in control’ virtually, while Vogue focuses on matching sweatsuits, and Walmart reports a 20% increase of sales in tops, but not pants. DTC retailers, like Mack Weldon, say their “comfort/lounge” category grew “on average 60%,” compared to the days before WFH. 
• While WFH shifts the workforce into a more casual mood, young people are recreating their ‘Friday night looks’ via creative outlets like the ‘Don’t Rush Challenge.’ And people around the world are getting dressed up to take out their trash, proving fashion is all mindset. 
• Retailers are leveraging music and Instagram Live to engage and build fans during this slow period. For example, Millennial brand Glossier (valued at $1B+) operates 30 Spotify playlists for its fans,meeting the needs of 38% of Americans who say they are using more music apps during the shutdown. YouCam is providing Free AR for beauty brands to build digital experiences. And streetwear brands like Chinatown Market are generating emotional excitement during quarantine with IG Live, charity collabs, and DIY projects. 

Social Distancing Twilight Zone: Americans anticipate a socially distant twilight zone after restrictions are lifted. A majority believe it will be more than a month from now (51%) things should start returning to work and life as normal and, even after they are, most anticipate a slow start to resuming ‘normal’ life.

• Working It Out @ Home: The majority of Americans say they plan to continue exercising at home (85%), instead of going to the gym (15%). 
• Hollywood Home-tainment: 79% plan to watch movies at home, in lieu of going to the theater (21%), and a similar number say they plan to stream live events at home (73%), instead of going in person (27%). 
• DIY Groomers: 57% plan to buy their own grooming supplies, instead of going to a hairdresser post covid (43%), especially men at 61% vs. 54% of women. However, things might change as people face hair dye shortages and their virtual hair cutting lessons don’t pan out.

Creative Foodie Distancing: Americans can’t wait to go out to eat again, but they aren’t quite sure when and what it will look like. Aside from spending time with family and friends (74%), the second thing Americans miss most is eating out (70%), yet a majority say they are more likely to order take out when the economy re-opens (65%), over dining in (35%), while a similar number say they plan to continue having virtual happy hours (67%), instead of going to bars and restaurants (33%).  

• Restaurants attempting to woo consumers back are getting creative with distancing measures, such as Calabama, a pop-up restaurant in L.A. that serves its sandwiches lowered down in a bucket, following a famous Istanbul tradition. Meanwhile, Basil Street is launching contactless robotic Pizza vending machines to treat social distancing taste buds.
• The bar scene is also finding its place online as Molson Canadian launches virtual happy hours to support local bars, whiskey tastings go virtual, and a new type of virtual club enters the scene, from Club quarantine, to Daybreaker’s Virtual House Party, to Instagram strip clubs, to TikTok and chill with #HappyAtHome nightly concerts.
• Doubletree is doling out comfort, giving away their famous secret chocolate chip cookie recipe, while Disney is giving away their famous churros and dole whip recipe and this Gen Zer, Cal, offers to bake banana bread with your kids.
• Americans are eager to get back to the supermarket: 73% say they will return to buying groceries in person, instead of turning to grocery delivery (27%). As online grocers like Amazon start virtual waiting lists and Mondelez experiences ‘unprecedented’ demand for online snacks, other food suppliers are jumping in to fill gaps. For example, restaurants are pivoting, now selling groceries, restaurant suppliers such as Baldor Speciality Foods and Pepper are becoming DTC brands, and the Netherlands is planning micro-markets to promote social distancing at the farmers market.
• Overall, Americans report consuming more home-cooked meals and fresh food during this time, snack food is also on the rise. Parents are relying more on more coffee (38% parents, vs. 31% non-parents) and chocolate (29% parents, vs. 22% non-parents).

Flywheel Entertainment: Harris’ insights were featured in the WSJ, With America at Home, the Streaming War Is Hollywood’s Ultimate Test,’ highlighting the increasing appetite for streaming entertainment, especially among families, but also Hollywood’s challenge to fill this increasing desire remotely. For example, parents with children at home are spending $60 a month for streaming subscriptions—well above the general population—and have 3.8 services (vs. 1.7 for households with no children). Nearly half of parents (49%) with children at home recently subscribed to Netflix in March (vs. 18% non-parents). 

• In the past week, we’ve seen Hollywood get creative, building content on the fly, even while doing it from their homes. For example, SNL cast reunited entirely from home with Tom Hanks and a special Bernie/Larry David appearance, while Sting, Jimmy Fallon, and the Roots remixed ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me’ from home, and Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell star in the world’s first socially-distanced soap opera. Perhaps even better, this week was Matthew McConaughey’s virtual bingo night for seniors, an experience you just can’t make up. 
• Continuing the remote comedic relief, Tina Fey and other writers share what their TV characters would be doing in quarantine, while the Comedy from Home platform launched yesterday.
• Disney released a new ‘Simpsons’ short to Disney+ early, and announced plans to remake its classic 1973 Robin Hood film as a CGI Disney Plus exclusive.
• On Easter, Andrea Bocelli brought millions of people around the world together, in his ‘Music For Hope’ concert at Piazza del Duomo in Milan, which has been viewed over 33 million times to date. And, this Saturday, you can tune into Lady Gaga’s One World: Together At Home, featuring Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, John Legend, and Sesame Street.
• Gaming continues to surge as ‘Call of Duty: Warzone’ reaches 50 million players within one month, and Nintendo says “more systems on the way” as Switch sells out worldwide. Meanwhile, Animal Crossing announces a fishing tournament schedule and more in-game events to come.

500 ft of Volunteerism: “There is a lot of evidence that one of the best anti-anxiety medications available is generosity,” said Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at Wharton, featured in a recent NYTimes piece about The Science of Helping Out.

• In France, more than 200K people sign up to help farmers with local harvests. Meanwhile, in the U.S., as Meals on Wheels volunteers are staying home because of Covid-19, college kids are filling the gap, and in DC, volunteers provide food for locked-down and needy neighbors. 
• In Nepal, volunteers feed hungry animals at a revered shrine, while in Vietnam businesses and volunteers set up ‘rice ATMs’ that provide free rice for people. 
• In the medical space,over 90,000 medical workers have volunteered to help NYC hospitals and about 25,000 are coming across the country being flown for free by major airlines like United, JetBlue, and Delta. 25K veterans also volunteered to return to the Army to help the COVID-19 response.
• Harvard and MIT Undergrads create a volunteer tutoring platform to serve K-12 students.
• Charity Water reports that in communities where they are implementing ‘Water for People’ with their partner in India, it has provided 9 out of 10 households with soap and water available for handwashing, while globally, only 6 out of 10 households have soap and water.

That’s it for now. Till next week.

The post Acts Of Kindness Are The New Necessities, The Pulse Of Covid-19 appeared first on Libby Rodney.

How are you? Are you grieving? Most of us are, grief experts call it anticipatory grieving– the unknown loss of tomorrow, our old lives, human touch, our health, our financial wellbeing, etc. We’ve lost our collective sense of safety and security on a global level, and it will have long-term implications on our society in the future. At the same time, humanity is showing an incredible amount of resilience and creativity, finding new ways to live in this new normal, from WWII vets dancing to Justin Timberlake, to virtual proms, to meeting new grandchildren through glass windows. 

In New York, there is a heaviness that is unavoidable, it’s in the air, weighing down on our lives and wellbeing. This week, it’s particularly challenging to find the silver linings amid the mass loss of lives, but this also is the fundamental opportunity of leadership. 

With that in mind, let’s look into what’s emerging in the market and how companies, individuals, animals, and communities are leading into the unknown as a source of information, insight, inspiration, and maybe even a point of levity.

Harris’ latest data throughout the trends are highlighted in bold

Action Hero Companies & Leadership: It’s all hands-on deck and Americans expect companies to pull out all the stops to help seize and control this pandemic. All Americans want companies to take action to help fight the current pandemic, saying the following have most potential to improve their opinion: donating money, supplies or time (92%), allowing customers to forgo payments for up to 6 months (91%), shifting production to create supplies needed to fight the pandemic (91%), and having executive forgo salaries or other compensation (84%).

• COVID-19 testing accelerates: The test times have rapidly improved from 45 minutes (two weeks ago), to 15 minutes (last week), to just 5 minutes this week with the announcement of Abbott’s ID NOW, an FDA-approved lab-in-a-box test. Additionally, we are making progress with the first FDA approved antibody lab testing rolling out, and Scanwell Health is seeking FDA approval for an at-home antibody blood test (via finger prick + smartphone), which has already been approved in China.
• Researchers are leveraging Google’s behavioral data to help identify emerging COVID-19 outbreaks. For example, searches for “I can’t smell” were highest in New York, New Jersey, Louisiana, and Michigan — four of the states with the highest rates of diagnosis. 
• Supporting the front line: American Express and Hiltonhave partnered to offer healthcare workers up to 1MM free rooms across the US, while Serta Simmons bedding donated 10,000 mattresses to New York hospitals.
• Refueling the protective supply chain: Tesla released a video showing off its efforts to build ventilators using components from its Model 3 cars. Apple’s supply chain has now donated 20 million masks, and they are designing 1MM face shields per week for medical workers that are fully adjustable and assemble in under two minutes. Meanwhile, an Apple supplier, Flex, is starting to assemble thousands of ventilators. 
• Helping the financially vulnerable: TurboTax launched a free online portal to help people who don’t file taxes get their stimulus check faster.
• Crowdsourcing for good: NASA issued agency-wide call for crowdsourcing of ideas to fight the pandemic, while Medtronic shared its portable ventilator design for free to increase global production.
• Protecting employees: In addition to the measures taken to bolster the supply chain above, Apple is also offering store employees $100 toward WFH gear and stress management tools. 84% of Americans say large companies’ top priority should be keeping its employees safe, even if it means that customers need to wait to get their products, versus making sure their customers get their products as quickly as possible even if it means putting some employees at risk (16%).
• Celebrating the real heroes: UK magazine Grazia replaced its usual celebrity cover with everyday healthcare heroes, while Vans is selling custom sneakers to support 80 small businesses, including skate shops and restaurants.
• WSJ highlights how the pandemic’s most powerful writer is a surgeon; read Dr. Craig Smith’s daily updates here for a dose of reality and optimism. Brooklyn landlord Mario Salerno just canceled rent for hundreds of tenants.

Sanitary & Sanity Start-Ups: Delivering what the world wants most right now, start-ups and businesses are ideating and crowdsourcing new ideas that meet consumers’ needs for sanitation and sanity.  

• We took a look at where consumers are directing their discretionary income on Kickstarter to get an understanding of where this trend could be headed. For example, Hygiene Hand, an antimicrobial brass door opener started with a fundraising goal of $5K has been funded by over 6,000 people, making over $300K+. Rev™, self-cleaning pure silver socks, had a fundraising goal of $5K, and has already raised $60K. Lumio, a UV self-cleaning toothbrush that zaps germs with UV light, asked for $11.5K, and received $73K in support. Meanwhile, PICO, a concept that allows you to garden inside with telescopic LED grow lights and a self-watering system, asked for $10K, and bloomed into over $145K of support. Lastly, consumers are looking to find sanity and escape in a globetrotting board game, Trekking the World, which asked for $32K, and people have pledged more than $190K.
• As demand for mental health help soars, SonderMind raises $27 million to expand its services. The World Health Organization in Africa is holding virtual hackathons and offering up to $20,000 in seed-funds to finalists with digital solutions to stem COVID-19.
• Masks, masks, and masks: From DIY social media posts, to fashion brand donations, to new small business opportunities, masks will become 2020’s must-have accessory. And now the CDC shows you how to make a face mask in 45 seconds, along with Kate Hudson.

The New Normal: Repackaging our collective experiences, we are slowly emerging from the shock of the lockdown and starting to wrestle with the pieces of how life moves on from here, what does it look like and what will change?

• A WFH tipping point: While we know it’s hard for some, most companies and employees are seeing the upside from working from home. 62% of Americans say they have been working from home since the coronavirus pandemic. A Harris Poll with GlassDoor shows that 67% of Americans were in favor of working remotely indefinitely, if their companies made such a policy mandatory. And that 60% of employees said they were confident they can efficiently do their job remotely if their companies instituted mandatory work-from-home standards. According to Gartner, 74% of CFOs want to move (at least some of their workforce) home permanently. And if you need inspiration, there are at least 100 ‘Work From Home’ playlists now on Spotify to keep you going.
• Will we wonder why we ever waited in the doctor’s office? FCC funded a $200M telehealth initiative to help medical providers offer remote care, while Forward launched ‘Forward At Home’ COVID-19 primary care service, sending users an at-home-kit with an EKG, connected thermometer, connected blood pressure cuff, and a pulse oximeter to upload vitals for virtual appointments.
• Reimagining dinner parties and wine tasting: An Austin catering shop is now offering virtual dinner parties where they’ll deliver dinner for two and facilitate a virtual meal with others, while Brooklyn Winery is offering virtual wine tasting with the winemakers.
• Upskilling and side hustling: 53% of Young Americans (18-34 yrs old) have sought additional sources of income as a result of the current pandemic (38% of Americans overall). Many Americans are rethinking about how to secure their financial wellbeing in the future and e-learning is playing a pivotal role in that search, right now there are over 450 free courses offered by Ivy League colleges to learn something new, and even Audible is giving away free audiobooks to children and teens stuck at home. Out of this crisis, we might see an emergence of a more empowered self-directed learner, who is skilled, prepared and questioning the point of student loan debt.
• New signals and signs of the times: Twitter verifies experts on COVID-19 to stop spreading false news. We see a new set of emojis roll out to adapt to the times, from elbow bumps, to empty toilet paper rolls, to ‘closed’ signs.

Cope-A-Chilla: Craving the life we once had, people are getting creative, wacky and weird with their coping mechanisms. 54% of Americans report feeling cabin fever, including 65% of 18-34 year olds. Yet, they are still grateful for the time off, 59% of 18-34 year olds say they feel grateful for ‘the break from work to be at home with my family or by myself’ (49% of Americans overall). As a society, we are finding new outlets for our energy highs and lows, so we can do our part by staying at home.

• Calm contagion: Finding our new chill by overcompensating with artisan goods such heirloom seeds and exclusive coffee beans, joining global musical meditations and sleep meditations, listening to podcasts that will put you to sleep by reading terms of service agreements. Colleges are even pausing grades to provide relief for stressed-out students.
• Putting a pause on beauty expectations: We’re seeing celebrities going make-up-less, and people shaving their heads. Meanwhile, beauty mogul billionaire Kylie Jennier encourages her fans this is the time to experiment with things like healthy hair journeys saying “this is just such a good time to take your hair out, nails out, go no lashes.”
• Free to be wacky: Diving into the ‘why nots’ of our creativity, we are seeing how people react to all this free time, from women surprising their husbands in old wedding dresses, to quarantine ‘rainbow’ nails, to artists in NY creating street art puns, to roommates recreating classic paintings on instagram.
• Parents are pulling out all the stops: 70% of parents have increased use of streaming services (vs 42% of adults with no kids in the HH). Parents (54%) have also given in to more screen time, with many relying on more snacks (43%) and new toys (32%) – especially stressed out Dads (39% dads vs 25% of moms). Despite all of this entertainment kids still, make it into the Zoom feeds, with 35% of parents saying their kids have made cameos on conference calls. 🙂 Kindercare is working to support distressed parents with daily tips from Dr. Ray, and free at-home lesson plans that range from infants to school-age kids.
• Food, water, liquor? Americans have voted with their wallets on this one and showcased that, in these times, liquor is an essential to their coping mechanism: liquor sales are up more than 75 percent over the same time last year, since all bars are closed.
• Gammy-loving to the rescue, people are turning to Grandmas around the world for their comfort, wisdom, and home cooking; for example, you can take a virtual pasta-making class with this Italian grandma.
• If your IRL baking endeavors haven’t been as fruitful as you’d hoped, I Am Bread is the world’s easiest video game where the objective is simply to make toast.

Bridging Digital Divide: We cannot mention all these new normals and coping methods without fundamentally addressing the elephant in the room: broadband and mobile access. Many Americans are being left out of this evolving normal, which, in some ways, is shedding light on the inequalities that have persisted far too long. Our research with the 4-H Youth Council and Microsoft shows that youth with unreliable broadband access are less confident about graduating, finding a job, and financial success. 

• NYTimes highlights that some schools across the country report that fewer than half of their students are participating in online learning.
• The good news is the next stimulus bill should fund the FCC’s Lifeline program, providing funding for connecting low-income families to telecommunications technologies, while others demand that the internet should be classified as a public utility.
• But this isn’t just a connection problem, it’s also a hardware issue. For example, in Philadelphia almost 15,000 students didn’t own a computer; thus, this week the school board authorized spending $11 million to buy as many as 50,000 computers to make remote learning possible for all students. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts donated $5 million to help pay for the equipment, while committing to giving customers unlimited data for no additional charge and making WiFi hotspots free for everyone.

Animals Unleashed: When people go away, the animals will play. As this lockdown literally changes the way the earth moves, animals are finding new opportunities to provide levity and entertainment for their stressed human counterparts.

• Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? This wine-delivering dog helps maintain social distancing during happy hour, while this woman trained her dog to deliver groceries to her elderly neighbors. Others are getting here are hilarious ways owners are keeping their pets entertained during quarantine: from ‘stair fetch’ to cat hamster wheels.
• Americans are turning to animals of all types – dogs, cats, and even chickens – to help cope with isolation as animal shelters report a surge of applications. Animals are also comforting each other, like Ruby, the pup who loves to pet others. Meanwhile, PAWS Chicago is using its own food pantry to provide extra pet food to higher risk pet owners. 
• A lack of human traffic is also giving animals new opportunities, as you can now see goats galloping through the streets of Wales, while this aquarium’s coronavirus lockdown gives dolphins the chance to meet a sloth. In other news, these orangutans went viral for washing their hands properly.
• Animals win Employee of the Week, with these hilarious pictures of pets working from home with their human bosses. Even more epic, you can now invite a goat to your next Zoom meeting. 

Celebrations & Gathering Rewired: We are hitting a popular time of religious, family, and coming-of-age celebrations in the U.S. and around the world, and people are getting resourceful to find new ways to celebrate together. In recent Harris data, we see that the top 3 things Americans miss most are dining out at restaurants/bars (51%), gathering with friends and family (49%), and shopping in stores (39%), all of which are traditionally a big part of celebratory moments. Last year, for example, last year NRF reported those celebrating Easter spent an average of $151 per person, and about 8 in 10 U.S. adults participated.

• To keep the festivities alive this time of year, Pope Francis celebrated Palm Sunday mass in an empty church, while parents are looking to create a ‘magical’ easter despite lockdown and NYMag offers tips to host a Spiritualish Zoom Seder. In a different realm of celebration, disappointed fashionistas turn to ‘Sims’ to flaunt their Met gala outfits.
• Weddings continue to bring out the creativity: this couple created a 150-person wedding ceremony in the Nintendo game “Animal Crossing”. 
• Kid’s birthday parties go virtual: Indoor trampoline park Sky Zone is now offering virtual birthday parties with hassle-free party planning for free, asking parents only to donate tips. Meanwhile, Evite has updated its app to allow party hosts to add video chat links to their personalized invite and is beta-testing their own Evite video chat.
• And, in a more empathetic ritual, when this 8-year old broke his arm, his entire class sent digital signatures to ‘sign’ his cast.

Building The Roots Of Fandom: Entertainment industries and streaming services are seeing this time as an opportunity to introduce and build lifelong fans, as they have the most captive audience that has ever existed. More than half of Americans say their time watching streaming services has increased as a result of coronavirus (53%), and, since March, many Americans have signed up for streaming services, including Netflix (30%), Amazon Prime Video (23%), Hulu (21%), Disney+ (20%), YouTube TV (18%), HBO Now (13%), AppleTV+ (11%), CBS AllAccess (11%), ESPN+ (11%), and SlingTV (10%).

• HBO is giving away some of their best movies and shows for free, under the banner #StayHomeBoxOffice. Also, HBO has built ‘GOT’, ‘Succession’, and ‘Westworld’ Zoom backgrounds to liven up your meetings. The NBA is preparing a televised H-O-R-S-E tournament, while Shaq is going to host movie watch-alongs on TNT. And Phoebe Waller-Bridge produced a one-woman-theater show version of Fleabag.
• Entertainers coming together: The cast of Hamilton Reunited appeared on John Krasinski’s feel good YouTube show, while Lady Gaga is collaborating with the World Health Organization and Pespi tothrow a virtual concert with Elton John, Lizzo, and Billie Eilish to “celebrate and encourage the power of the human spirit.”
• Content creation @ home: Disney is releasing a series of new Frozen shorts made entirely at home, while Charli XCX has announced she is making and will release a full album in quarantine.
• Creating a new generation of fans: With more abundant free time, Americans have more opportunities than ever to dive into art and culture. Now you can live stream the Met Opera, featuring Verdi’s Aida, Donizetti’s Don Pasquale among others, or catch the National Orchestra of France play Bolero, using the magic of technology to weave together the sight and sounds of its musicians. And, if that gets you excited, consider supporting this Kickstarter ‘Hear My Voice’, a project to get more youth of color involved in the Opera.

500 ft of Optimism: Global outlooks are looking up as we come together to fight and overcome the current pandemic.

• Scientists have never worked more closely together, as the NYTimes highlights “more than 200 clinical trials have been launched, bringing together hospitals and laboratories around the globe.” 
• Bill Gates steps up as a voice of reason and cash flow to curb COVID-19, he offers a three-step plan, is funding 7 new factories for 7 potential coronavirus vaccines, and the second vaccine the Gate foundation has funded is started human testing.
• Watch 52 NYU medical students take their oaths early to volunteer in the war against Covid-19. And despite the racism Chinese-Americans are facing, they are tapping into their social networks to procure medical supplies from China (thank you!).
• Stock markets are rebounding in Europe and Tokyo
• Oh, and Google is wiping out Mosquitoes!

Image from top of the page is from a NYTimes series: ‘Dear Customers’: These Are the Emotional Store Signs of a Closed New York

That’s it for now. Till next week.

The post We’re All Grieving, The Pulse Of Covid-19 appeared first on Libby Rodney.

As we close March with sober notes and silver linings, we could never have imagined such a force of disruption entering our lives, our businesses, and giving the whole nation pause. Americans continue to feel the overwhelm and stress as 56% are worried about losing their jobs and 46% think the stimulus package for individuals and families was not enough support.

Yet at the same time, we are starting to see a shift out of paralysis into remarkable action – business leaders are stepping up, business models are pivoting overnight, consumers are starting to mend their mental and physical wellbeing, and overall we are coming together as a community to help those in need most. 

With that in mind, let’s look into what’s emerging in the market and how companies are (re)acting as a source of information, insight, inspiration, and maybe even a point of levity.

This week we’ve woven Harris’ latest data throughout the trends, highlighted in bold. 

Survivalist Companies: We’ve been following companies that have stepped up to bridge the leadership gaps over the past month, but there has been a greater shift in the American psyche as COVID-19 persists. Americans expect more from private leaders and will remember the companies that took action, sent resources to the front line, and did the right thing. In these intense times, consumers are looking for signs of hope from CEOs and companies that have their back (a.k.a. not sales emails). In fact, 34% of Americans say marketers should “only advertise if they have taken action to address COVID19,” while 41% are more open to messaging and say “COVID-19 advertising is a good thing regardless of actions companies have taken, it shows they care.”

• Faster tests in more hands: last week the U.S. FDA approved a 45-minute fast test; this week it’s fast tracking a point of sale COVID-19 test that gets results in 15 mins or less. Meanwhile, more companies are rushing to get COVID-19 screening apps/sites into consumers’ hands from Ro, to Microsoft, to Alexa, and now Apple. In fact, already 6% of Americans report they’ve been tested for the Coronavirus (9% male, vs. 3% female). Meanwhile, 16% of Americans think they should be tested, including 19% of young Americans (18-34 yrs old) and 22% of parents.
• Companies are pivoting into wartime supply chains: for example, Dyson is building 15,000 ventilators, Apple is sourcing 10 million face masks, 3M has doubled its global production of N95 respirator masks to a rate of nearly 100 million per month,and Delta is offering free flights to qualified medical volunteers. 
• CEOs are pledging to save their employees: Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, challenged fellow CEOs to join his “90-day layoff pledge”, while Disney’s CEO Bog Iger (entertainment’s highest-paid executive) and Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson are forging their salaries, and Lyft co-founders John Zimmers and Logan Green are donating their salaries to help their drivers.
• Hospitality brands like The Four Seasons Hotel are offering free lodging to doctors, nurses and other health care workers, while Airbnb relies on the goodwill of its hosts asking them to provide 100,000 free rentals to first responders.
• 54 software companies are offering their services pro-bono to government agencies scrambling to get control over the virus. 
• After giving away $500,000 of shoes to the medical community, Allbirds is asking consumers to help fund the next round through a “good for you, good for me” product bundle to support medical workers. In Brazil, gangs are enforcing curfews and handing out hand soap to slow the spread.
• Burger King and Moe’s Southwest Grill are offering free kids meals, and Sweetgreen is offering free salads to hospital workers.
• Our latest data shows that these measures are having an impact on Americans’ perceptions. Positive perceptions are on the rise from last week for the following industries (in order of positivity/weekly increase): healthcare (+8%), retail (+7%), pharma (+6%), restaurants (+8%), F&B (+6%), and tech (+6%) since the outbreak.

Overnight Transformers: “Ask for forgiveness later” never has been more true as companies scramble to reimagine their business models, pivot overnight, and keep their lights on. We see small businesses especially making nimble moves in our latest SBO report: 19% have moved online, 15% have changed their product offering to keep revenue coming, and 10% have changed their product offering to address pandemic-related shortages.

• Canils, a 69-year old fine dining establishment in Seattle pivoted away from fine dining and reopened as three micro-hubs: a bagel shop, a drive-through burger joint, and a “family meal” delivery service that includes a bottle of wine.
• Athena, an Austin security firm, redirected its AI heat sensing technology from detecting firearms to using it to identify those who have fevers. 
• NASCAR’s new normal resumed Sunday with another virtual event, the second in an iRacing series thrown together. The first iRacing event drew 903,000 viewers to Fox Sports 1 and was the most watched eSports event in U.S. history.
• Family-run businesses are tapping into a newly captive audience: online butchers are seeing a surge in orders, such as Rastelli’s,a family butcher out of New Jersey, who said, “Overall, we’ve seen an increase of about 1,000%, 95% of which are new customers.”
• In the absence of sports to gamble on, casinos are now taking bets on the weather – the chances of rainfall have never been higher stakes.  

Love In The Age Of Corona: While half of young Americans likely went into social distancing without a romantic partner, the rest of Americans with a partner are cozying up and/or trying to not to kill each other. Love in a lock-down has had interesting implications on how we find, react, receive, and celebrate relationships. Almost half of Americans (47%) report virtually connecting with friends and family this week, up 8% from last week, while 57% of young Americans (18-34 yrs old) are doing it.

• Drones for dating? A love story between two 20-somethings that went viral, from dancing on roofs, to exchanging numbers via drone, to finally meeting each other in a giant inflatable ball.
• When reality TV becomes our actual reality: “Love is Quarantine” is a “Love is Blind” parody that matches self-isolated singles amid the coronavirus wave. Singles everywhere are getting more creative with their pick up lines: for example, the classic: “I’m just a girl, standing 6 feet away from a boy. Asking him to maybe move back another foot. Thanks,” or this comedian who is self-quarantining with a mannequin, documenting their romantic adventures, from Sunday brunch to couples yoga. Meanwhile, The Cut explores Virtual Sext bunkers and highlights that dating app Hinge found that 70 percent of its members would be happy to start digitally dating.
• New crushes are also emerging: ‘My Boyfriend Andrew Cuomo…’highlights our love for people who lead in times of crisis. In fact, 48% of Americans rely on their governors for information on COVID-19 (4% weekly increase), beating out the president at 45% (3% weekly drop).
• Meanwhile, making up for lost time on the frontline, a nurse in China requests that the government assign her a boyfriend after she helped fight corona. The Washington Post weighs the possibilities of what will happen to couples across America post-quarantine, will it be a baby boom or a divorce tsunami? In China the divorce rates spiked after the quarantines were over.

Wanderlust @ Home: The travel industry works to teleport their values of escape, adventure, and relaxation to Americans who feel trapped indoors via virtual staycations. In fact, once the lock-down is over roughly 1 in 4 (24%) Americans say “going on vacation” will be the first major purchase they will make, surpassing buying new clothes (19%), household goods (17%), and attending live sports/concert events (12%).

• Now you can live-stream views from the world’s best hotels, catch the northern lights from the comfort of your couch, observe elephants in their natural habitat at the Anantara resort in Thailand, and even take virtual tours or listen to nature sounds of U.S. National Parks to transport you away from your living room and into a new reality.  
• With or without brands, consumers are recreating travel experiences themselves. For example, these Disney fans are recreating their favorite theme rides at home, while Disney is launching their own virtual parades to fill the void. 
• For those who live in Switzerland, you can now simply check-in to Le Bijou a luxury hotel offering a quarantine package that includes a personal coronavirus test, or you can now buy a pimped out “winnebago on steroids” to get off the grid that will set you back $600,000+. And Hotel Gaythering is hosting virtual cocktail hours, bingo nights and events for LGBTQ community.

The Age of Consciousness: Is this a tipping point for the time and space Americans will use to finally pick up meditation practices? According to our latest poll, 25% of Americans are using Wellness apps (e.g., Meditation, fitness apps) more since the outbreak, including 36% of parents.

• HBR suggests that team leaders start meetings with a few minutes meditation, to pull workers out of their anxiety and into the moment.
• Yale is offering their most popular class around cultivating happiness called the Science of Wellbeing online for free. Meanwhile, Deepak Chopra’s meditation stream crashes as over 1 Million people tune in, as other mental health companies offer free therapy during this trying time. 
• A former NASA astronaut gives advice about warding off cabin fever.

Fitter Or Fatter?: Wellness has been the largest macro-trend we’ve seen in the past 5 years creating a $4.2 trillion global industry impacting most consumer verticals. Now with all this new found time, physicians wonder if this will be the tipping point we needed to set and keep healthy habits. According to our latest poll, nearly 41% of Americans are going for daily walks (+5% weekly increase) and 54% of Americans say they break the stay-inside rules for daily exercise (+6% weekly increase). 

• There is a list of 48 free ways to exercise during the virus circulating the internet, including a class taught by NYC Ballet principal dancer Tiler Peck. 
• Kevin Hart’s “What the fit” series features celebrities learning new workouts for comedic exercise inspiration, while Venus Williams has started a daily live short workout on Instagram in which she does exercises anyone can do from home. Chris Hemsworth is giving people free access to his home fitness app, Arnold Schwarzenegger shared his at home workout with the Reddit community, and Las Vegas Chippendales dancers turned their routines into quarantine workout videos. Even the FBI says now is a great time to download its home fitness app.
• A man in France ran a marathon from his balcony demonstrating the limitless potential to exercise in small spaces.
• Eating your emotions? PlateJoy is offering 1-month free access to personalized meal planner. Or, if that is too much, here are 14 foods you can eat as much as you want.

Cabin Fever Fuels Consumption & Creativity: Americans are doubling down on their screen time, diving in deeper, and even reading more. According to our latest poll, Americans have reported increasing the amount of time watching TV (57%), on their smartphones (56%), streaming TV (50%), reading books (35%), and reading magazines (19%). For parents, these numbers increase significantly for smartphones (67%), streaming TV (63%), and books (44%). Many are also tapping into pent-up creativity to create and share content of their own

• Tiger King continues dominate the number #1 spot for Netflix and celebrities get involved by live-tweeting their responses, including Jared Leto dressing up as the tiger king. All pandemic movies have been pushed to the sidelines (perhaps hitting too close to home) and are instead replaced by “drug dealers/cartels being your worst case scenario,” as Ozark comes in at #2 this week and Mel Gibson’s Blood Father comes in at #4.
• Home-cooked entertainment: Tiktok families host over-the-top themed dinners, from hibachi at home to eating on an airplane to Tiger King dinners. We’re also seeing new forms of creative quarantine cuisine, such as the rise of the “tot-waffle”.
• Looking for other ways to unwind? Now you can watch Patrick Stewart reading Shakespeare live on social media, join Ben Platt for a virtual dance party, or play with 3D giant animals in your living room to distract your kids (thanks to Google).
• Celebs really are just like us: they’re bored, picking up hobbies, and reaching out to their networks. Giannis Antetokounmpo is learning guitar, sport announcers are narrating our mundane realities, and Steph Curry used his Instagram platform to interview Dr. Fauci, where over 50,000 people tuned-in, including President Obama. And if you have down time to kill, you can hire a celebrity to give your special someone a shout out, Cameo is booming during quarantining.

Humanity Surges Together To Support The Frontline & Each Other: This invisible enemy (as horrible as it is), is showing the strengths of humanity coming together. In fact, 90% of Americans feel that the most patriotic thing we can do for our country right now is to make a national sacrifice to stay home for the welfare of others. While, 4 in 10 say they will donate some of their stimulus economic relief to hospitals and around a quarter of Americans have helped an at-risk friend or neighbor with errands (23%), a 4 point increase from last week. And it’s important to keep the good news in mind, as we all fall prey to ‘Negativity Bias’, so here are some stories to get you started:

• The Office’s John Krasinski launched a YouTube channel dedicated to good news, with a visit from Michael Scott. 
• Young boy spends his life savings to help the elderly, while WestJet threw 4 students a mini-graduation on their flight home after their college closed due to the coronavirus.
• Foster dogs are reported to be New York’s newest shortage, as people seek companionship during quarantine. While, mothers reach out to expectant mothers in a heartwarming video, saying “You Are Not Alone”. And in British Columbia, a couple was surprised with a social distancing wedding parade.
• Banding together, Americans are sewing homemade masks to fight coronavirus, and communities are rallying around one another — and Google Docs — to bring coronavirus aid to those in need. 

One final meme reflecting the nations mood

 That’s it for now. Till next week.

The post Sober Notes & Silver Linings, The Pulse Of Covid-19 appeared first on Libby Rodney.

One week later and life feels fundamentally different for most of us. Being a good citizen is hard (as many of us are finding here in New York) — and doing it while running businesses, teams, and households are even harder. If there is any way our team can be of support to you, your business, or team, please let us know. 

Tonight’s focus is away from the standard COVID-19 headlines surfacing the micro-trends we are seeing emerge in the market and how companies are reacting as a source of information, insight, inspiration, and maybe even a point of levity.

 This week we’ve woven Harris’ latest data throughout the trends.

Companies Continue To Fill The Gaps: Consumers have been consistently looking to private companies for leadership and, as of this past weekend, our data shows that Americans have a better view of healthcare companies, grocery stores, pharmaceutical companies and technology companies since the outbreak.

• This week, the U.S. FDA approved the first rapid coronavirus test with a 45-minute detection time, while at-home diagnostic brand Everywell developed one of the first at-home test kits, and Amazon Care partnered with The Gates Foundation to distribute at-home coronavirus assessment kits, and then deliver the collected samples to FDA-approved test facilities in a Seattle trial. Meanwhile, the CDC and Microsoft created a coronavirus self-checker bot to help Americans check their symptoms from the comfort of their own homes.
• Most of America’s biggest banks are beginning to come out with hardship policies (e.g., deferred payments, lower interest rates etc.,) to work with customers individually to provide relief — an act that is highly supported as 85% of Americans support suspending student loans in response to COVID-19. Meanwhile, Ford has pivots their Final Four commercials into financial payment relief commercials.
• Summersalt, a swimwear startup, transformed its customer service channel into a free text message emotional support hotline, which it’s calling a “Joycast” to lift consumers’ moods with self-care videos, mediations, and puppy GIFs.
• Newspapers across the UK have also banded together to provide support and solidarity, running a singular front page proclaiming, “We’re there with you,”while Nike recruits everyone to “Play for the world” by staying inside.
• Bandcamp is giving 100% of their commissions back to musicians (within the first 24 hours, musicians took home $4.3MM).
• Whole Foods is following the trend we reported last week of offering Elderly hours starting at 8am, and paying employees what is called hazard pay ($2 more), along with Target, H-E-B, Amazon, and Albertsons.
• Other companies are finding ways to give back to their workers. Starbucks has gone 100% drive through and is offering employees 30 days paid, even if they take time off; U.S. Bank announced a 20% premium pay program for frontline-employees, and Facebook has given employees an extra $1,000 as well as positive performance reviews. As of March 22, 19% of Americans say their employer has ‘increased paid sick leave’ in response to COVID-19 (up 5% from March 7).
• Companies amplify their ‘giving power’, this week Netflixestablished a $100 million relief fund, which includes $15 million for donations to organizations already working to support out-of-work production employees. Kraft-Heinz announced that it was donating $12 million in support of communities impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. Lyft is donating tens of thousands of rides to those with essential transportation needs.

Supporting #HealthCareHeroes: Those saving our lives are exhausted, overwhelmed and are fighting for basic necessities to keep themselves and patients safe. In NY alone– 30,000 professionals have come out of retirement to join the frontline. According to our latest poll, nearly 9 in 10 Americans are concerned about a potential shortage of healthcare workers, up 8% since last week. 

 Brands are stepping up to provide support:

• Fashion designers like Christian Siriano are making masks and medical supplies, while Fiat Chrysler announced it will start producing 1 million face masks a month and all masks will be donated to frontline workers.
• Elon Musk is not only working on building ventilators with his SpaceX and Tesla teams but he also recently acquired 1,200+ ventilators from China to donate to U.S. hospitals; medical TV shows like ER are also doing their part, donating supplies to real hospitals as well. 
• Oura, the smart ring monitor, has started a new study with UCSF and 2,000 front-line healthcare workers to the ring can help with early detection of COVID-19. Oura is also expanding the option for its entire 15,000 global user base to opt-in to pre-detection monitoring.
• Kindercare has pivoted child care operations to support first responder families. 
• Anheuser-Busch and other distilleries are pivoting to make hand sanitizer, working with the American Red Cross to provide sanitizer to communities in need.
• Even restaurants are getting involved: Roberta’s Pizza sent free pizza to hospital workers, and Sauce Pizzeria has added a “Cheese Pie for Hospital Donation” option to its online ordering platform.

 Optimizing The WFH Experience: Many Americans have had a week, maybe two, to get into the swing of WFH. While many debate whether this will be the tipping point for remote work, our data shows over 1 in 5 Americans can’t wait to get back to the office, saying that ‘once the government provides information that the spread of the virus is flattening, they would be willing to immediately go to the office’ – by comparison, they estimate waiting at least 2-3 months before returning to restaurants or the gym again.

• More than 600,000 people downloaded Zoom in a single day last week and many are scrambling to ‘hack’ their video-chatting appearance.Applying beauty enhancing filters (i.e., to erase the effect of sleepless nights) and virtual backgrounds like beaches and outer space to escape the realities of sheltering in place. For those who want to showcase elegant, spotless homes virtually on Zoom, West Elm has you covered.   
• Celebrities are helping Americans feel more comfortable WFH– Mindy Khaling shares her work from home attire that features a polished top paired with PJ pants.
• Now a Danish design company will deliver $85 cardboard desks to set up home offices on the fly, something companies could leverage to help at-home workers get settled.
• Many industries are innovating to reimagine the state of conferences, ‘CanceledCon,’ is a two-day event that will take the place of design conferences that have been postponed or canceled this year.

Cheers to (Virtual) Quarantinis!: It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s a fix for the need to connect and be close. Nearly 4 in 10 Americans say they are virtually connecting with family and friends, with 20% saying they have had a virtual gathering with friends in the last week. Among Gen Zs, these numbers rise to 55% and 35%, respectively.

• From virtual dinner parties to remote happy hours, new self-quarantine dining rituals are maintaining connections for Americans who are social distancing, like this dad and daughter dining practice, which was viewed over 15 million times.
• Virtual challenges are popping up faster than you can say “cheers,” such as the viral pushup challenge ‘See 10, do 10’on Instagramencouraging physical fitness, or the kush up challenge (another wellness approach), which was championed by Snoop Dogg. We expect to see more of these easy-to-follow social challenges on newsfeeds near you in the coming weeks.
• Weddings are being rewired in the age of social distancing, such as this couple who got married by a friend leaning out of a 4th story window, or this one who live-streamed their wedding on Zoom.

Quarantine Appetites: As panic buying reaches new highs and lows, many are left wondering if they stocked up on the right things – and, perhaps more intimidating, how to cook it all themselves. 

• Cooking content is pivoting towards staples, featuring recipes good enough to eat for 17 years, chefs giving their guidance on what you really need to be stocking up on, and quarantine cooking shows that teach the basics of self-reliant cooking skills. Meanwhile, the bean market is booming like never before, while “comfort booze” shopping is also seeing a spike.
• Beyond the practical, Americans are looking to treat themselves while quarantining: pastry sales jumped over 18% compared to previous week and champagne brandsreport the demand is as high as New Year’s Eve. 
• One San Francisco bakery is offering Quarantine Cakes, with messages reminding recipients to “wash your hands” or “pretend you’re an introvert.” Stress baking at home is also on the rise, as people are turning to baked goods for a source of comfort.
• Others are opting to outsource their food prep – more than half of Gen Zs & Millennials planning to order food delivery from an app during the outbreak (52%).

Survivalist Parenting: Parents are giving into screen time and giving each other permission to throw judgment out the window as they are just trying to survive WFH while raising children.

• Amazon Prime is offering free kids’ movies and TV shows, no membership required, while Nickelodeon has launched nickhelps.com, with free content and educational coronavirus resources.
• Kids in Brooklyn are finding a colorful way to connect and stay entertained, placing rainbows in their apartment windows for a quarantine-safe scavenger hunt. Where’s Waldo has released a coronavirus edition — and now you can find him.
• Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium took fans on a virtual tour of the aquarium, guided by real-life penguins.
• For children worried about how coronavirus will impact their dental income, the President of Argentina assured children that the Tooth Fairy is exempt from quarantining.
• TIAA recently came out with a commercial that empathizes with what it’s like to work from home with kids, we especially like the line ‘that guys looks scary [referring to the boss],’ meanwhile, Italian parents offer conciliatory advice to their U.S. counterparts: ‘everyone is going to go nuts, so you’re not alone.’
• Tinkergarden an outclass educational company is offering free virtual classes for parents that they can do anywhere. Kids can now also take drawing lessons from top illustrators for free and tune into story times nightly @6pm EST.

Consumers Continue To Need Levity & Escapism: Consumers are turning to entertainment to distract and occupy their time. Consumers are searching for a reprieve by tuning out the news: 4 in 10 Americans say they are “reading more non-news related content to cope”. 

• Netflix is being forced to cut traffic by 25% in Europe, but they won’t stop the party, now Netflix Party lets you chat with friends while watching, and this TikTok tutorial will show you how. Popeyes is taking another approach to treating their customers like family by sharing their Netflix login details.
• Netflix’s latest unhinged docuseries, Tiger King takes this week’s number #1 spot, while surging into #6 spot is “2012”, where John Cusack, saves his family and the world from natural disasters. Meanwhile, ‘Pandemic’ a docuseries about how to prevent an outbreak replaces the Hollywood version ‘Outbreak’ for the #7 spot.
• Last week, we saw NBCUniversal move to direct release, this week Paramount moved to directly release on Netflix –Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani fans rejoice LoveBirds is coming for ya!
• New York Times has curated an ultimate entertainment watch list to preoccupy your mind that updates every weekday.
• Formula 1 is also finding new ways to provide entertainment, offering its first-ever Virtual Gran Prix. While in Austin, Ultimate Outdoor Entertainment is getting creative, providing mobile drive-ins that come to consumers.
• GameStop continues to argue for its place as an essential business that connects people at times of distress, and switches to door delivery service
• ‘Dave & SPAM’ of the Washington Post provide comic relief for those WFH on TikTok, while Ellen DeGeneres has taken to cold calling celebrities — and live-streaming their reactions.

A 500ft Glance @ Optimism

• WHO launches global mega trial of the four most promising coronavirus treatments, in a program aptly titled “SOLIDARITY.”
• Bill Gates predicts we will see the light at the end of the tunnel in about 6-10 weeks (if we do this right). Meanwhile, a majority of Americans believe social distancing policies will last for roughly for the next 10 weeks.
• China has lifted the lockdown on Wuhan, while Italy reports a second consecutive day of dropping cases, sparking hope around the world.
• A break for mother earth– shutdowns are creating unintended environmental benefits, from clearer waters in Venice canals to NASA images showing huge declines in air pollution over China with similar declines in pollution emerging across the U.S.
• Across the country, Americans are also stringing Christmas lights in an effort to share light and hope.

That’s it for now. Till next week.

The post Being A Good Citizen Is Hard, The Pulse Of Covid-19 appeared first on Libby Rodney.

3.17 The Pulse Of Covid-19: The Trends Of The Past Week

We know many of our clients are working through dealing with the implications of Covid-19 on their business and day-to-day realities of managing work at a time like this (e.g., WFH isn’t for everybody). We thought it would be nice to send around the micro-trends we are seeing emerge in the market and how companies are reacting as a source of information, insight, inspiration, and maybe even a point of levity.

Harris was in the field last week and found that:

• Our recent poll found that 74% of Americans said they’re afraid of “accidentally spreading the virus to vulnerable people even if they’re not experiencing symptoms.” (see WWD article here) 
• Americans 60+ are least worried and least informed about COVID-19, but as we know are most at risk (see Forbes article here). 
• 66% of CFOs believe it will take less than a month until back to normal, and are most concerned about a global recession and decrease in consumer confidence (see PwC CFO Pulse study here).

Companies are filling the gaps: Consumers have been consistently looking to private companies for leadership and, at this extreme time, they are looking for all the help they can get.

• The new luxury, handsanitizer? LVMH is now pivoting three of their largest perfume plants to make hand sanitizer for France, free of charge.
• Ro, a US digital health company, developeda free Coronavirus Telehealth Assessment for anyone to take and then Ro will connect you to a medical provider for a free consultation.
• Grubhub/Seamless removed its commission fees for independent restaurants, offers ‘contactless delivery’ options for consumers (including emphasizing cashless pay and apps to beat checkout lines), and gives consumers the ability to round up and donate their change to the restaurant workers. Uber follows suit. So far, 19 states or cities have shut down restaurants and bars and restaurant workers have organized a relief fund. Meanwhile, meal kit delivery service Blue Apron sales surged 67%.
• T-Mobile Tuesday changed its promotional offer this Tuesday to a $1 donation for a COVID-19 ‘Feeding America Fund’, they are giving a minimum of $300K to the cause and up to $500K to supporting American families struggling with the side effects of the shut down.
• Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, is deploying an emergency employee leave program.
• Planet Fitness to offer free at-home workout classes via live stream to ALL consumers.
• Grocery stores like Woolworths and Coles in Australia, are offering Elderly hours (opening stores one hour early for older consumers to get their shopping done) to protect the health of older consumers.
• Facebook is awarding $100 million in grants, ad credits to small businesses.
• Chinese automaker BYD, which specializes in making batteries for electric vehicles, pivots its production to become the world’s number one face mask producer in an effort to curb shortages.

The mental health connection: Companies are helping Americans manage anxiety and promote wellbeing during quarantining.

• Guided meditations are popping up on YouTube for a falling stock market.
• 10 percent happier, Dan Harris’ company, came out with a free coronavirus sanity guide, which offers practical tools to cope with stress, fear, and anxiety.
• Headspace unveiled free subscriptions to healthcare professionals working in public health settings through 2020.
• Cannabis sales are surging as the US and Canada battle with the anxiety.
• U.S. Starbucks employees can now get up to 20 free therapy sessions.
• Norway hosts a press conference just for kids to answer their questions on anxiety.
• Chipotle Together hangouts give consumers a chance to connect despite social distancing.

Consumers are in need of levity: Consumers are turning to entertainment to distract and occupy time, with estimates predicting a 60% increase in TV viewershipas quarantining continues.

• Netflix trends show consumers are entertaining their tweens (e.g., On My Block #1 in their top 10 shows in the US), looking for escape (e.g., Love Is Blind, #3) and still watching ‘Outbreak’ (#7) The full list of top 10 in the US includes: ‘On My Block, ‘Spenser Confidential’, ‘Love Is Blind’, ‘Lost Girls’, ‘Boss Baby’, ‘100 Humans’, ‘Outbreak’, ‘Trials Gabriel Fernandez’, ‘Elite,’ and ‘Angry Birds 2.’
• NBCUniversal is shifting from the box office release to on demand streaming – for $19.99 this weekend you can stream “The Hunt,” “The Invisible Man” and “Emma.” 
• There are already 65 songs on Spotify that have coronavirus in them, meanwhile Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson created a playlist for everyone self-isolating.
• Tik-tokers are spreading levity, information and PSAs, like these: 

1. Vietnamese PSA TikTok craze dance challenge 
2. Nurse dances  
3. I will survive remix
4. Gen Z reimagines 2020 graduation 

• Half of all US parents with kids under 10 are now Disney+ subscribers, and parents are supporting each other with resources like 30+ Virtual Field Trips, childcare sharing apps, and virtual museum tours.
• Time Out New York has rebranded as “Time In,” providing a host of at-home entertainment options to help promote social distancing.
• Others are turning to good old fashioned offline entertainment, with knitting seeing a resurgence.
• Another market that’s having a moment? Bidet sales have surged as fears over toilet paper hoarding mount.

A 500ft glance at China: What’s happening now as the market works to recover and heal:

• Jing Ulrich, JP Morgan’s vice chairman of global banking and Asia-Pacific, predicts that the Chinese economy will grow 15% quarter-on-quarter from April to June, after contracting by 3.9% during the first three months of 2020, compared to the previous year.
• Today in Chinese consumers are what Bloomberg Media describes as “Revenge Spending”: going out to luxury retailers and malls and enjoying their sense of freedom again. 
• Hermès International CEO Axel Dumas said he foresees “potential normalization” of operations with seven of its 11 stores in China beginning to resume operations. 
• Apple and Starbucks have reopened over 90% of their stores in China (six weeks of total closure and disruption).

That’s it for now. Let us know if this was helpful, you’d like to subscribe to our email newsletter or if there are other burning questions we can help answer. We plan to keep providing updates in the following weeks.

The post Trends Emerging 3 Days Before NYC Quarantine appeared first on Libby Rodney.