Insights with Microsoft: Lessons from various Australian industries

Today we're sharing some insights on specific industries to help you adapt your marketing strategies and drive success in these unprecedented times.

The way the world works will never be the same, and maybe that’s a good thing.

We now know that in the absence of any intervention, the coronavirus will grow exponentially. That’s why the world’s 20 largest economies had implemented some sort of government-mandated social distancing strategy by late March, many of which had orders in place before then. This spurred an unprecedented shift to have a global workforce work remotely. It also acted as a forcing function to see if a world working from home could maintain the same levels of productivity as that of their former office environments. According to Bond Capital’s latest Internet Trends Report, the answer to this question is yes, at least when looking at the first month and a half of data from the quarantine.
 
The beginning of this transition seems like an eternity ago at this point, but for many of us, the shelter-in-place announcements meant that we quickly had to prepare to work from home for an undetermined amount of time. As a result, in the days and weeks following we saw a staggering lift in searches for electronics and office products. In Australia, for example, queries were up over 100% and 230%, respectively. As we collectively scrambled to get our home offices set up, a surprising trend emerged in click data. There was a significant focus on quality and comfort which can be seen in the comparison-related shopping queries and the 350% lift in clicks for ergonomic goods. This indicates that people are indeed preparing for a prolonged stint of working remotely.
 
While no one holds a crystal ball and can say exactly what life will be like in a post-COVID-19 world, it’s safe to say things will never go back to how they were, and that’s alright. The coronavirus pandemic acted as a catalyst to accelerate digital transformation around the world, and the gains and progress made in that space are here to stay. What is still less certain is how leaders and companies will continue to foster the growth of a distributed workforce that have now proven just as effective while performing their tasks remotely.
 
Source:  AU Electronics & Office insights  

From innovators to the majority: A look at the rapid adoption of online grocery services

At this point, we’re all much too familiar with the phrase “flattening the curve” in relation to slowing the spread of the coronavirus. However, looking at a similar bell curve model helps explain the growth and adoption of products during the COVID-19 era. To help analyze the key levers, we’ll look at the diffusion model, popularized at the turn of the century by Malcom Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point. The model looks at a bell curve and, from left to right, breaks it into categories of innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. It helps to look at a specific example, so in this case we’ll look at food delivery services in Australia.
 
To set the stage, Australian supermarkets are expected to enjoy a $9B sales boost as shoppers eat more at home, according to AFR. A lot of this is driven by a nearly 50% increase in weekly e-commerce sales of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs). We know that a lot of these sales are being made by first time online grocery shoppers based on the number of emerging queries related to ‘home delivery’ for major department stores. To build on these data, there’s been upwards of a 500% lift in ‘online shopping’ queries for these same department stores. This lends credence to the notion that Australia has hit the “tipping point” of adoption for online groceries, and most people are now using these services.
 
The data hold true and show similar growth patterns for other developing FMCG e-commerce markets like France, Italy and Spain. The key takeaways here are to observe how rapidly consumer behavior has shifted as a result of the shelter-in-place orders, and that these shopping habits are here to stay now that the masses have tried it for themselves.

Source: AU Food & Grocery insights
 
For these and many other weekly-updated insights, please bookmark our COVID-19 insights and resources for advertisers center and subscribe to the Microsoft Advertising Insider newsletter to receive blog updates automatically. If you’d prefer to listen instead, follow our Insights with Microsoft podcast series on Apple, Google and Spotify. Curious about strategies and recommendations? Read our digital advertiser’s guide to COVID-19.
 

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