While many of us are busily shopping online, our thoughts on the Holidays and how we approach the shopping and buying experience are being surveyed. You may have noticed ‘pop up’ surveys from CivicScience.com, a research firm that gathers thousands of opinions every week in voluntary consumer data.
CivicScience.com queried Americans about whether the Covid pandemic was still affecting their holiday shopping plans and behavior.
Here’s what they found:
Only 8% of Americans expect their holiday plans to be meaningfully impacted by COVID this year. Granted, 8% still stinks, but it’s way better than last year. In all, two-thirds of U.S. adults don’t expect the pandemic to impact their holidays at all (knock on wood), up from 48% in 2021. For most people, those plans include family – 60% of Americans ‘definitely’ plan to spend time with family for Christmas, an increase over 57% last year.
CivicScience.com also probed whether name brands are more or less important to shoppers, based on their age/generational grouping:
Gen Z is more brand-centric than their predecessors and the strongest brands are benefitting. When compared to 18 to 24-year-olds five years ago, today’s young adults are over 2X more likely to say they value brand over price when shopping. Don’t mistake it for loyalty – brand loyalty is an urban legend. It means they are more discriminating, that they view brands as badges of their identity, often eschewing prestige for an expression of individualism. They’re thoughtful about the message their purchases send. You can see it in the changes in brand favorability over the past five years. McDonald’s, for example, has seen big gains among this group – because they’re unpretentious.
When they’re not out shopping, CivicScience.com says many Americans are ‘binge watching’ Christmas movies and special Holiday programs on their many screens:
It seems more and more people are taking up this trend, with 48% of Americans saying they’re likely to binge content over the holidays, up from 45% last year. New TV shows are the top choice, by a lot. One-third of people, like us, will binge movies they’ve already seen. Hulu and Peacock users are the most likely to binge.
Learn more about what Americans are thinking and doing this Holiday season at www.CivicScience.com
