Digitally escaping the quarantine

There are likely to be lots of delays or cancellations with upcoming product launches in 2020. And with consumers so distracted and worried, frankly, it’s going to be hard to get them to care.

Nevertheless, Nintendo released their Switch console game Animal Crossing: New Horizons on March 20, a day after the world saw one of the biggest jumps in Covid-19 cases so far.

The result: Sales records smashed in Japan and in the UK. Benji Sales, a video game industry analyst, expects it to be in the top three biggest Switch launches ever.

How did Nintendo break through the pandemic noise? They didn’t. It looks like it actually helped.

Looking at the social data, there were 1.6m people talking about the game, with 6.7% (112k) of them specifically referencing Covid-19 and isolation-related terms. Many were even looking to the game to get them through a quarantine.

People obviously need escapism in times of crisis. A cute and relaxing game about building a village full of anthropomorphic animals is about as far away as you can get from the news right now. It’s light, it’s positive, and it’s fun.

It also lets you connect and socialize with your friends in-game. In other words, it gets you ‘out of the house’ and into an open-ended world (just in time, as the freedom we have in our own world is being restricted).

In comparison, Doom Eternal, a grim and dark first person shooter, was released the same day. It’s sales were strong, beating the previous game in the Doom series, but just couldn’t capture social media’s imagination come launch day.

DIY in isolation

With a global increase in people working from home, isolating, or unable to work at all, many are finding ways to fill time and keep themselves occupied. We’ve found that for a lot of people, that means doing some DIY.

We looked at how many people were discussing DIY and found in the two weeks since March 2, the topic had a 37% increase in unique authors.

This data excludes mentions of do-it-yourself face masks, as we wanted to see what kind of non-Covid-19 DIY jobs people were getting up to.

Looking at last week, crafting seems to be very popular with 15k mentions, or 10% of the total DIY conversation. Painting saw 12k, music saw 8k, and furniture got 5k.

It’s clear this isn’t just about finishing up some odd jobs around the house – people are getting more creative. They’re also learning new skills, too. Google Trends tells us global ‘how-to’ searches are at their highest since Christmas 2017.

Got something to teach people? You better get started on some content.

Booksmart: Parents turn to social and Google for homeschooling courses

In the US 39 states have closed schools, affecting more than 41 million students. The UK closed schools on Monday, while Italy, Spain, and Germany shut schools weeks ago.

But it doesn’t look like school’s out for summer just yet, as parents turn to Google for homeschooling tips and courses.

Consumer Research revealed 12.5k English-language mentions of homeschooling courses or tips in the last 30 days, with parents keen to teach their kids math (6.6k).

Surprisingly, parents aren’t too stressed by the situation. 48% of emotion-driven social mentions were classed as joyful, with parents excited to spend more time with their children by being actively involved in their education.

Sadness formed a further 22% with parents upset and worried at the state of the world, and their children becoming isolated.

There is an opportunity here for companies able to offer support for their workers with children. And for education and e-learning companies, this is surely a time to shine – there’s a whole new set of potentially loyal customers to go after.

Support mental health

Now 20% of the world is on lockdown (according to The Guardian), mentions of mental health on social media have skyrocketed, to a total of 846K mentions, since January 1.

English-language mentions increased 15,819% between March 9 and March 24, when the US and a number of European countries entered ‘lock down’ stages.

Fear was most common among emotion-driven mentions at 73%. People were worried about their mental health under this extreme social isolation, which starved people of their old routines.

Sadness came second at 11%. Consumers felt lonely already and were almost in despair at the state of the world. Another 7% of mentions were disgusted by a lack of support from their service providers, while joy registered at 5%, with people trying to lift one another up.

In terms of how people were feeling, 218K mentions flagged depression and 667K mentions included people explaining how their anxiety had become worse, or users mentioning they had become anxious.

There’s a big opportunity for mental health charities and activists to be a shoulder of stability and address how we can help our mental health in the weeks and months to come.

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Brandwatch Response Team