COVID has brought consumers closer to their roots: Study

The pandemic has brought people a lot closer to their roots and as buyers, people are increasingly seeking locally produced items. During the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers are buying products made by small-scale local businesses that remind them of their childhood and family.

This has been discovered by researchers at Vienna University of Economics and Business and Cornell University. The study published in the Journal of Marketing has been authored by marketers Isabel Eichinger, Martin Schreier and Stijn M.J. Osselaer.

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The dual forces of digitisation and globalisation have made the social and work lives fast-paced and mostly virtual. This has increased the consumers’ need to feel grounded during the worldly chaos caused by the pandemic, according to the study. Stating the example of apple pie, the study revealed that participants who felt more rooted by using local apples to make homemade pie, also felt stronger, safer and more stable to withstand adversity.

The report also made some suggestions for marketers and policymakers to leverage this rootedness. While marketers must strategically target customer segments with a higher need for groundedness, policymakers should consider this behavior as a driver of consumer well-being.

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