Think back to what you were doing at this time last year - a few weeks into the new year, ready to take on 2020. If you were like me, you might have just attended a wedding or other similar large, crowded event. Fast forward to now. Take a look around you. Maybe you’re working from home, reading this blog post between Zoom calls. Or maybe you’re reading this on your tablet while helping your children with e-learning. In any case, are things the same as they were last year?

2020 presented more changes to human behavior than any year in memory. As the Pandemic Lifestyle became a reality for billions of people, our wants and needs changed. Staying healthy and avoiding getting infected with Covid became a priority. Add general civil unrest and an altered political landscape to the mix of a global pandemic and it’s clear our perceptions of what is most important to us changed as well.

So what does this have to do with market research?

We were recently on a call with a potential client when they explained how important it was for them to get fresh, updated data because the data collected pre-pandemic isn’t nearly as relevant or useful anymore. They realized that their customers underwent a gigantic shift in behavior and their entire consumer journey has been altered. What was once a fairly straight-forward path-to-purchase (go into store, purchase item) was now expanded to include curbside pickup, online ordering and mobile ordering (and in-store purchasing was no longer a big focus).

Of course, as with most sudden, drastic changes in behavior, people will try to return to the norm. Not all the changes were bad either. The pandemic forced more people, especially older generations, online at a faster pace than we’ve ever seen. Now as our parents are placing their grocery orders online as opposed to shopping in-store, and we are way more comfortable taking video calls instead of meeting in person, we have to wonder: which of these behaviors are going to remain, and which are going to disappear, and how can marketers harness this information?

From Brand Equity studies to Express surveys, Lab42 offers several options to help our clients regain their footing in the new year. Investing in research now can help you better understand your customers and their changes so you can more efficiently engage with them. Fresher insights now will help you make better, accurate decisions, which in turn can help you better position your company to ride out the rest of the pandemic.