Consumer behavior has been changing on a daily basis, driven by unprecedented social distancing and shelter-in-place orders, economic contraction, widespread fears around unemployment, and massive government stimulus measures around the world. In the pages that follow they share data and findings on how to deliver performance in this new world.

1. Adapting creative for a COVID-19 world
Introduction:
Consumer behavior has been changing on a daily basis, driven by
unprecedented social distancing and shelter-in-place orders,
economic contraction, widespread fears around unemployment, and
massive government stimulus measures around the world.
In the pages that follow we share data and our findings on how to
deliver performance in this new world.
March 31st. 2020

2. Many people expected CPMs to fall as impacted advertisers pulled out of the auction or reduced spend.
The data backs this up: CPMs appear ~40% lower than the same time last year.
About the data: We analyzed approximately $350M of conversion-optimized (pLTV, CAC, ROAS) client and non-client spend across Facebooks family of apps,
representing 35B impressions cumulatively, in Q1 2019 and Q1 2020 in a wide range of industries including fashion, beauty, financial services, health & wellness,
insurance, meal delivery, and more.
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CPMs
2019 CPM 2020 CPM

3. About the data: We analyzed approximately $350M of conversion-optimized (pLTV, CAC, ROAS) client and non-client spend across Facebooks family of
apps, representing 35B impressions cumulatively, in Q1 2019 and Q1 2020 in a wide range of industries including fashion, beauty, financial services, health &
wellness, insurance, meal delivery, and more.
* 🔴 - COVID-19 starts to negatively impact consumer buying behavior
*Thumbstop = 3 second views/impressions and excludes stories placements.
*CVR = purchases/link clicks using Facebook’s default attribution window
At the same time: thumbstop* and conversion rates have declined rapidly, suggesting a
fundamental change in what gets attention and drives purchases. What was working before
had clearly stopped working.
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CVR
2019 CVR 2020 CVR

4. What’s driving these changes?
Given that messaging that had been reliable for years stopped working overnight,
we’ve been working around the clock to figure out how to research and deploy new
messaging that could bring client performance back to prior levels.
Our in-house market research team identified and our creative testing validated 3
major behavioral shifts
Moving from
‘want’ to ‘need’
Price-consciousness
has increased
People have
shifted to a
scarcity mindset
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5. With widespread uncertainty about job
stability, and millions of furloughs and
terminations, people are looking for more
value than before.
How we’ve leveraged this:
By providing reasons to buy now vs later,
emphasizing comparative value, and by
bringing offers to the foreground.
A lot of minor annoyances and problems
are a lot less acute relative to the
devastating health crisis and financial
situation, and unique challenges of being
confined to home. Consumers almost
immediately stopped engaging with
products that don’t fit clearly into a current
‘need’ category.
How we’ve leveraged this:
By shooting and emphasizing product use
cases that are more in-line with current
needs both situationally (eg “at home”) and
psychologically (eg by using language and
situations in ads that emphasize
empowerment, control, and self-agency --
at a time when those are sorely lacking for
most people)
News of toilet paper and other shortages
led to people stocking up on necessities
and de-prioritizing purchases that can
wait until later.
How we’ve leveraged this:
By finding ways to position around
scarcity (e.g., “almost sold out” or
“Limited supplies available”), while being
mindful to avoid capitalizing on fear.
Moving from
‘want’ to ‘need’
Price-consciousness
has increased
People have
shifted to a
scarcity mindset1 2 3
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6. About the data: We analyzed approximately $200M of conversion-optimized (pLTV, CAC, ROAS) client and non-client spend across Facebooks family of
apps, representing 20B impressions cumulatively, in Q1 2020 in a wide range of industries including fashion, beauty, financial services, health & wellness,
insurance, meal delivery, and more.
* 🔴 - COVID-19 starts to negatively impact consumer buying behavior
*CVR = purchases/link clicks using Facebook’s default attribution window
*Thumbstop = 3 second views/impressions and excludes stories placements.
Results: By adapting our messaging to speak to these new consumer realities, client
performance took a huge upswing and in fact helped drive record-setting results both in terms
of scale and ROAS than pre-COVID times for many of them.
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7. How creative organizations can adapt
Recommendation 1: Update and validate consumer research on a weekly basis
Recommendation 2: Accelerate the Creative Test & Learn Cycle
Recommendation 3: Engage your brand team early and often
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8. Over the next 3-9 months, consumers are likely to be inundated with new developments on
a daily basis. That means that messaging that worked yesterday can stop performing today.
If you don’t have an in-house market research team, consider hiring or partnering to ensure
you have visibility into what’s changing and make sure your creative teams are able to
incorporate new messaging into your ads on a 24-48 hour cycle. Clients that don’t invest in
this area may get caught with inefficient ads that can jeopardize their ability to meet growth
and profitability targets in 2020.
Recommendation #1:
Update and validate consumer research on a weekly basis
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9. Empower and encourage your creative and media buying teams to move a lot faster, and
test a lot more than ever before. That’s necessary because the speed in which you iterate
needs to not only outpace normal creative churn but also keep up with shifting consumer
behavior.
At TubeScience, we’ve seen success moving from a weekly to a daily or every other day
test cadence for many clients. And we’ve increased our output by 15 to as many as 100
new videos per week, per client.
Recommendation #2:
Accelerate the Creative Test & Learn Cycle
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10. Be transparent about what’s changing, and the need for more testing. Ask for permission to
cut unnecessary steps in your creative process. It shouldn’t take months to put new content
together. If you can’t turn around creative in less than a week, you might find it stale the
following week. Shorten briefs, allow more creative freedom, and empower your teams to
reduce shoot complexity to generate more footage quickly.
Recommendation #3:
Engage your brand team early and often
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11. Thank You
Please contact darlene@tubescience.com for more information