How COVID Has Molded Consumers’ Memories

COVID-19 has plunged us into a looking-glass world. Sometimes it seems we can’t trust anything or anyone – not even ourselves.

Messaging from governmental and public health leaders has been inconsistent and sometimes incoherent. Social media has proven a hothouse for pandemic-related nonsense. A U.S. “news” network watched by 3.6 million people each night spews geysers of lies. It’s a mess.

Nonetheless, most of us believe we can take the available information about even a nuanced topic like COVID, separate fact from fiction, and make sensible, rational assessments.

However, psychology and history suggest that is not always so. We often remember only what is convenient to remember – and some of the facts we retain are not even facts. Our imperfect memories can shape our judgments long into the future, which has implications for marketers and consumer researchers.

 

Memory is fickle

Memory doesn’t work like a camera, creating true-to-life pixel-by-pixel snapshots. Instead, memory is more like modeling clay. We shape and re-shape our memories into different forms over time; once in a while, a little chunk falls to the floor, never to be used again. In short, our memory is reconstructive, not reproductive.

Science writer Robert Roy Britt has discussed why that makes us so ill-equipped for the realities and aftermath of COVID-19.

This is not a joyful moment. COVID has created social isolation, fear, sadness, and even anger. In the US, the pandemic overlapped with a toxic presidential campaign and terrifying aftermath, which drove many of us even deeper into the emotional tar pit.

Such experiences do not bode well for memory. Britt quotes Cornell University’s Charles Brainerd, who contends, “Things that substantially elevate people’s stress levels lead to poor encoding of events as we experience them, which in turn elevates false memories.”

Propaganda also shapes perceptions and, in turn, memories

Fake news is insidious. When supposedly credible sources present plausible-sounding information we tend to believe it, all else being equal, and our minds may even create mental images that reinforce those beliefs.

For example, prior to a 2018 ballot referendum that legalized abortion, researchers showed more than 3,000 Irish voters news accounts that described untoward behavior on the part of advocates on both sides of the issue. Even when informed that some of the stories were fake, many voters not only swore they remembered the events described, but also added details never mentioned in the bogus reports.

These false beliefs affect behavior. Gillian Murphy from University College Cork in Ireland told Britt, “Reading a fake story about problems with a Covid-19 vaccine was associated with less willingness to get a vaccine in the future.”

 

A confounding variable in memory encoding is our pre-existing beliefs

Britt cites a study in the journal Human Communication Research in which subjects read statistics showing the number of immigrants from Mexico to the United States dipped from 12.8 million in 2007 to 11.7 million in 2014. When asked later to recall those details, people misremembered in a systematic way.  According to the lead author, Jason Cornell from Ohio State, those who entered the study believing immigration from Mexico was, in fact, rising, tended to unconsciously shift the statistics to fit their preconceived narrative.

“We had instances where participants got the numbers exactly correct — 11.7 and 12.8 — but they would flip them around,” Cornell said. “People can self-generate their own misinformation.”

Failures of memory also can be collective. The 1918 flu pandemic killed at least 675,000 people in the United States. The depth of suffering was staggering. In Philadelphia, for example, the dead were literally stacked up inside morgues, and bodies were buried in mass graves.

But historian Alfred Crosby called that outbreak, “America’s forgotten pandemic.” It left a wound but not a scar, and was forgotten nearly as quickly as it came. Indeed, a century later we repeated many of the fundamental mistakes of 1918 in our half-hearted, half-witted attempts to contain COVID-19.

 

What it all means

The interactions between COVID and memory present a number of implications for marketers. Here are a few:

 

Consumers are not prophets.

The question you want to answer may not be the question you want to ask.

Our beliefs about the future are shaped by our perceptions of the present and memories of the past – both of which are ever-changing. So, researchers should resist the temptation to ask, “How will COVID change your behavior in the future?”  It is an impossible question and the answers won’t be terribly inspiring.

We can, however, investigate how COVID is affecting us right now, psychologically and socially. What feelings and emotions do consumers have when they think about health, or when they think about specific products, services, and experiences?  A richer understanding of these issues becomes the palette from which breakthrough ideas can emerge.

 

An opportunity to shape memories.

Imagine being on a plane today and experiencing a sudden fit of sneezing and coughing. How would you feel? How about the people around you?

COVID has shifted expectations for behavior. If you furtively wipe your nose on your sleeve or breeze out of a public restroom without washing your hands, you are no longer just a barnyard slob; you’re a menace to public health. That represents a marketing opportunity.

In a few years these intense, visceral emotions could fade. Marketers, however, can make sure they don’t. Any brand with even an oblique relationship to health or hygiene should deeply explore the psychological zeitgeist of COVID – what is freaking people out right now, why, and how that makes them feel – and then message, innovate, and even redefine categories accordingly, so that the emotional memories of this pandemic endure, at least unconsciously, and work to that brand’s benefit.

 

An emphasis on experience.

I am confident that Instacart has changed my memories of grocery shopping. When I force myself to consciously reflect, I don’t recall complaining about going to the supermarket pre-COVID. But now that I am accustomed to grocery delivery, the memories of driving to the store, looking around, schlepping my purchases, and driving home feel like a real drag. If I never set foot in another supermarket, I would be fine with that.

If others feel similarly, that is a challenge for supermarkets. They could think about how to improve the in-store experience. Maybe create opportunities for discovery, fun, or – down the road – social interaction. In other words, create shopper experiences that make me want to get up from my sofa for fear of missing out.

We may see this in other domains, as well. Will we recast our memories of attending events, recalling the tedium of traffic, long lines, and big crowds more than the joy of the event itself? If so, virtual event experiences offer infinite possibilities for innovation. Travis Scott’s Fortnite concert and the NBA’s experiments with unique camera angles and enhanced audio likely offer a glimpse of the future.

In short, what sucks about your in-person experience, how has COVID brought that negativity into stark relief, and how can you make it better?

 

Moving ahead

Forward-looking brands should think carefully about how we will remember life during COVID-19. It presents an opportunity for those brands to ask more thoughtful questions and emerge from this tragedy more responsive to a new set of customer wants and needs.

Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels