At Penguin Random House, direct communication and relationships with readers are key to marketplace success, and strong consumer marketing and outreach begin with understanding our audience. Penguin Random House Consumer Insights is excited to present Moments Spring 2022, a report that predicts consumer sentiment and behaviors we can expect during the coming quarter.
Spring 2022 will ring in the beginning of our third year living with COVID-19. While vaccinations and safety measures have made things like going back to work and school more feasible, we’re still living in a world largely shaped by this ongoing pandemic, the economic uncertainty it’s brought, and the way it’s shifted our home lives, how we live, eat, and relate to one another.
Moments Spring 2022 (watch the recording here), explored a few key themes:
- The Great Retreat. After years of our lives and routines changing, stopping and starting doing things out in the “real world,” and the continued unpredictability of variants, many consumers are taking the best of what they learned in quarantine and learning to appreciate down time at home. In a world that’s unpredictable and overwhelming the autonomy time at home offers is meaningful to consumers this season.
- New Money Mindsets. The pandemic has left lots of questions unanswered, but one impact that there’s no disputing is the rising inequality. While some consumers were able to save more than ever, more than half of them accrued even more debt. Both sets of consumers are interested in budgeting, personal finance, investing, and more.
- Viral Eats. The pandemic unlocked new paradigms for eating alongside an explosion of food content on TikTok that has surfaced the three new primary needs for consumers eating at home: make it fun, make it easy, and make it share-able.
We also explored spring bookselling occasions, with a primary focus on giving consumers a ‘dopamine hit’ to reward the ‘treat brain’ they developed over the course of the pandemic.
- New Year’s Resolutions: The key this year is to not expect big moves or lifestyle overhauls. Consumers are focused on momentum, small wins, and positive reinforcement.
- Valentine’s Day: Expand the celebration circle to include pets, kids, and salty singles. As always, don’t forget about the romance.
- Black History Month: Consumers are explicitly asking for brands to go beyond the traditional narratives, to back up big talk with big action, and to keep the celebration of Black culture going well-beyond the shortest month of the year.
- Easter: This is a big holiday for young parents and discount seekers looking to celebrate this religious holiday with some delight and hopefully a good deal or two!
- Earth Day: Climate change couldn’t be more top-of-mind for consumers, and yet Earth Day continually underwhelms as a bookselling occasion. Messaging early and often will get consumers out of the ‘last minute’ mindset, and appeal to their values to dive deeper on the issues they care about.
If you have a current or backlist title that aligns with one or more of these trends, contact your marketing team for suggestions about ways to reach and engage consumers with relevant content from your book.
Grant Griglak is Director, Consumer & Marketplace Insights at Penguin Random House.