Page 40 - Adnews Magazine November-December 2021

outside of their homes across the three different time periods
Near Australia GM marketing solutions David Raitt says its anal- ysis shows several distinct trends during the three phases which may help determine the likeli- hood of consumer behaviour changing and what we should expect post the last phase to largely pre-COVID freedom.
As it happened
In phase one before the lockdown (Jan 2021 to May 2021) foot traffic to all places of interest – including clothing stores, restaurants, hotels, cinemas and theatres - steadily climbed until April, where it hit its peak for the year to date.
The curve then began to fall post April but not drastically and remained at March levels until the lockdown in June, Raitt says.
The categories that attracted the most visitors during this phase were budget hotels, mid-range and budget clothing stores, restaurants and entertainment zones.
Unsurprisingly during phase two (Jun 2021 to Sep 2021) when Sydney was in hard lockdown, foot traffic to all categories fell sharply from July and remained low for all categories.
“During this phase, the only cat- egories to show any activity at all were restaurants offering takeaway options, budget hotels where return- ing travellers were quarantined and hardware stores offering click and collect services,” Raitt says.
Phase three began October 1 and by October 18 – barely 2 weeks into the city’s reopening – visitation rates to budget, mid-range and lux- ury stores were already up 139 per cent from the averages achieved during the lockdown months.
Whether motivated by an urge to feel good after 14-plus weeks con- fined to their own homes or just seeking a change in scene, of those that did head out to visit stores, 27 per cent visited luxury brand stores and 21 per cent visited budget or mid-range clothing stores.
An additional 19 per cent chose budget or mid-range hotels to visit, and 14 per cent headed to furniture stores.
The remaining 19 per cent pri- oritised entertainment spaces as
“Advertisers are always going to find a way to engage their users and talk to consumers.” David Raitt
Near Australia GM marketing solutions
their go-to with 10 per cent visiting restaurants and nine per cent head- ing to the cinema or theatre.
Of these, budget hotels and furniture stores proved the biggest drawcard, accounting for 15 per cent and 14 percent of visitations respectively.
However, in what Raitt considers the strongest sign yet that consumer intent will bounce back to the highs experienced in April 2020 or beyond, the data shows foot traffic has returned to January levels post the reopen.
Provided the numbers of COVID-19 cases remains low, Australia could even see a return to peak April levels by early December, he says.
“No matter what comes of the pandemic, advertisers are always going to find a way to engage their users and talk to consumers. Ad agencies are pretty bullish because despite COVID, consumer confidence has remained high in Sydney and Melbourne.
Earlier this year, In Jan through to March, there was a bounce back of about 25 percent in digital advertising expenditure. If you look at the compound growth calculator over the years, we’re probably going to end up as a category up 10 per cent up year-on-year.”
Challenges now and in the future
There is increasing demand from Australian brands for this type of real-world audience data as more CMOs, media companies and agencies seek to use data intelligence to better understand and build audience segments.
Human movement data intelligence.