A consumer PR agency with a difference.
We place our audience at the heart of everything we do.
We collaborate with brands and businesses to bring their PR and social media activity in line with constantly shifting consumer behaviour.
We can show you how to locate your audience and engage with them using the right channels.
By blending media, influencer, and digital activity we create bespoke strategic consumer PR campaigns. We can enable your business to navigate these PR spaces, always remaining relevant and flexible.
What makes our consumer PR techniques different?
We focus on impact - delivering outcomes that put bums on seats and make products sell out. Research is a vital part of this approach. By working with specialists like CGA Insights we can produce reports that keep us ahead of trends and enable us to advise our clients how to take advantage of them.
We regularly produce reports to share industry insights and learnings. Highlights can be seen below.
All reports are available by emailing us on audience@downatthesocial.co.uk
Trend Report
Our 2022 Trend Report speaks to industry leaders as we ask them what will be big next year, who sets the trends and their biggest challenges. Inspired by the concept of consumer led product design, we build our campaigns with an audience first approach to connect brands with their audiences - driving word of mouth and helping them thrive.
So for us it is vital to understand what consumers want and how they engage with brands and media in both the digital space and the wider world.
For that reason, we have asked some of the very best of the influencers and journalists that we work with what they think is going to be vital for businesses when building meaningful relationships with consumers in 2022.
You can download if from here.
Lockdown Learnings
We carried out two surveys with April and June to see how lockdown was affecting the nation’s consumers.
We learnt that we all missed eating out and seeing loved ones, but we weren’t going to rush out and get stuck in when restrictions were lifted.
We saw a strong desire to see extra measures in venues and for other consumers to follow social distancing alongside a trend to want to stay close to home.
75% of consumers told us that they were worried about the long term financial implications of Covid 19.
By June brand’s behaviour in the pandemic was starting to play a big part in our loyalty and as a nation we were starting to exercise more and eat more healthily.
Perhaps the biggest development was delivery, takeaway and the rise of the now staple restaurant At Home Box. 27% of people ordered delivery for the first time in lockdown.
July - Reopening
We asked consumers how they felt as lockdown was lifted and how their attitudes and spending habits had changed.
They certainly didn’t rush out in droves, but behaviour did exceed expectation. Almost half visited a hospitality venue and those that did went out a few times, but those that didn’t stayed home.
93% said their experience was either as expected or better as venues worked hard on distancing and safety measures.
46% of Brits were keen for the much hyped Eat Out To Help Out scheme and as they started to become accustomed to making a booking, they also started to increase ‘no shows’.
Delivery continued to rise, meal prep looked more attractive to maintain healthy eating and events and holidays were going in the other direction.
21% of consumers told us that they had ordered an ‘At Home’ kit.
Hands, Face, No Space
In November we were in limbo a bit, the Tiers were failing and we were heading into lockdown 2:0. The October BrandTrack showed that:
Consumers were generally wearing face masks in retail environments (75% always, 15% mostly) with older consumers and those living outside of town/city centres more strictly adhering.
The number wearing face masks as required in hospitality settings was slightly lower, with the most resistance coming from those aged between 18-34 and living in more urban locations.
Consumers were slightly more likely to strictly adhere to rule of six outdoors rather than indoors (70% vs 68%), with those aged 18-24 far less likely to adhere with just over half always sticking to the rules.
The least adhered-to rule was social distancing, with only 55% of consumers always adhering.
Opinion was divided in response to the restrictions on hospitality venues.
Christmas 2020
At the end of Lockdown 2:0 we started to consider what Christmas would look like.
Spending Christmas Day together as a family ranked top priority. Consumers told us that they planned to focus spending on food, booze and takeaways this festive period and stay away from bars and restaurants (depending on Tiers of course).
Then who could forget that the shift in the tier system saw tighter restrictions across Tiers 1,2 and 3, meaning that hospitality venues in Tier 2 could only allow drinking when accompanied by a substantial meal (scotch egg), and those in Tier 3 were only allowed to operate with takeaway and delivery.
The poll predicted that key priorities for consumers include family time, regaining some form of normality, spending less and a spike in delivery and takeaway services.