What pandemic video trends reveal about consumer needs
Data: 2020 m. rugsėjo 01 d.
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve been keeping a close eye on how audiences around the world are turning to platforms like YouTube. In doing so, we’ve been struck by all of the ways that people are using online video to fulfill timely needs, whether it’s to cope with social isolation, replicate essential services, indulge their passions, or simply find community. Because these trends reflect a much larger global shift toward a “new normal,” we wanted to learn more about the behaviors driving them.
Enter Susan Kresnicka, a U.S.-based cultural anthropologist who studies the relationship between fundamental human needs and consumer behavior. She and her colleagues have developed a framework for understanding consumer behavior as it relates to three core needs that all people experience: self-care, social connection, and identity.
To learn more about these need states and how they translate into YouTube video trends, I recently spoke to Kresnicka. Here’s what I learned, and what it means for your marketing.
Self-care
Far more than a buzzy term for bubble baths and scented candles, self-care “refers to the whole range of needs associated with sustaining and nurturing the individual, embodied self,” explains Kresnicka. “When the pandemic upended life as we knew it, many of the ways we were used to meeting our needs became untenable. So people are learning new techniques to soothe their anxious minds.”
