The Coronavirus Crisis Research Initiative

The coronavirus crisis is changing everything in ways we never expected. Read more below to understand our research and review custom options for obtaining detailed reporting and proprietary insights.

The coronavirus crisis has now emerged as a once-a-century transformation in the global economy, with radical impacts on trade-flows, consumer behavior, and spending across every industry. Collage Group members are now in the throes of intensive investigation into consumer response across every category.

Two factors reinforce why this initiative is so important.

**Cultural differences impact consumer behavior even more a time of crisis.**

Cultural backgrounds significantly influence the neuroloigical “defaults” in human behavior, especially when it comes to health. Consider the progress of COVID-19 in South Korea vs Italy, both democracies in which multigenerational households are common. The differences could not be starker. Indeed, the difference in outcomes could not explained without recourse to an understanding of differences in culture.

The multicultural contribution to growth increases in an economic downturn.

Multicultural consumers will continue to drive the majority of spending growth through this crisis. Indeed, the multicultural contribution to growth has historically increased when the economy shrinks. Indeed, all our projections indicate the contribution can only increase in the future. As you can see from the chart below extracted from our Big Shift research, multicultural response is even more important at this time than in periods of economic strength.

We cover four components in our coronavirus crisis research:

1. Deep Dive Syndicated and Omnibus Survey

Our main survey goes deep into culture factors that are critical to differences in consumer behavior. We incorporate cultural attitudes that impact health and response to risks to health, such as social proximity conventions, multigenerational contact, fatalism, compliance with authority and other factors. The difference between the Italian and Korean situation cited above is probably due to these factors in no small part

We will look at a variety of questions including:

- How does consumer reaction to the coronavirus vary across race, ethnicity, and generation, gender?
- How do cultural factors such as social proximity, risk aversion and multigenerational interaction impact behavior and motivations across demographics segments?
- How are consumers across all segments altering purchasing behavior across and within categories, including stockpiling?
- How are consumers viewing the future, where will they spend when the crisis passes and what will be the long-term effects on behavior?

2. Tracking Survey

Our tracker goes beyond top-line reporting. We will look at levels of concern in multiple areas (financial, health, etc) as well as with government and media response. We will also track behavior adoption change which can be used by brands to encourage consumers to “do the right thing” and which may be predictive

3. Revised Spend Projections and Brand Response

We will updating our Annual Population and Expenditure analysis. We will look at a variety of questions including:

- How are population and spending projections likely to be altered across race, ethnicity, generation, and gender?
- How will these projections alter the outcomes by category?
- What are emerging examples of effective marketing during the Coronavirus crisis?

4. Custom Solutions

Questions we are currently address on behalf of members include:

- How are consumer behaviors changing with respect to my specific category, brand and consumer segments?
- How are my marketing efforts being perceived by consumers?
- How is my size of prize changing?

We’d love to hear from you! Talk to us about the benefits of Collage Group’s methodologies.

Dive into More Insights

Screenshot of USA Today's Response to Black Lives Matter

Measuring the Cultural Fluency of USA Today’s “National Brand Statement” on Black Lives Matter.

October 19, 2020

Our latest AdRate study explores multicultural consumers’ reaction to USA Today’s official statement on Black Lives Matter.

Slow Improvement Amid Cultural Uncertainty: Updated Economic Forecast and Survey Results on Consumer Finances and Purchasing

October 15, 2020

Given all the uncertainty and stress of COVID, it’s more important than ever for marketers to keep a finger on the pulse of important consumer attitudes and behaviors.