What are people saying about the economy online?

The Innovation team at Instinctif harness the best of the future to deliver market-leading ideas in the present. The team’s specialism spans digital strategy and marketing, data & analytics, and strategic brand. This fortnightly update shares top tips to help you foster creative and challenge the status quo and summarises the news that matters.

This week’s lead article comes courtesy of one of our Innovation partners, the social listening platform, Pulsar. Alex Bryson from the Pulsar team has given us a data-backed review of what people are saying about the economy online:

No one knows much about where the economy is going to end up. But what do people think?

Aggregating public opinion might offer us ‘the wisdom of crowds’, or it might prove that no one knows much about anything at all. But, either way, it allows institutions and businesses to tap into the sentiments and opinions that make up a particular conversation.

Using Pulsar TRENDS, we can discover that:

1. Personal finances are a big concern.

The spread of the pandemic, and subsequent lockdown, saw a very pronounced spike in posts that contained the phrase “can’t pay”. So far, so expected. What we’re witnessing now, however, is a subsequent increase as lockdowns lift. Are we beginning to see the full economic consequences of the pandemic emerge?

2. We’re in a recession. No, a depression. No… 

Initially, the consensus was that we were undergoing a global recession. But the longer we stayed in lockdown, the more people began to talk of an economic depression instead.

On June 8th, there was a massive increase in mentions of the former, in response to the official declaration in the US that the nation was presently experiencing a recession. Outside of that one peak though, conversation has been skewing in favour of the more catastrophic outcome.

3. The latter half of lockdown has seen an uptick in optimism.

You can find bad news on the economy around every corner at present. But it’s not in the nature of people to take such setbacks passively. Instead, there has been an increase in posts that make reference to ‘build’ or ‘building’ since late May.

This also brings in some of the conversation around the Black Lives Matter movement, of course, as business owners and campaigners alike set out their visions to ‘build’ a #NewNormal we can all feel proud of.

Airbnb, Microsoft and IBM are just some of the companies founded during recessions. Can we expect to add to that list during 2020?

To explore how social listening can shed light on money, personal finance and consumer spending, join Pulsar’s research team on a webinar on Thursday 16 July at 4PM BST, where they’ll be discussing everything from UBI to consumer intent by sector.

Tool of the week

Top tip

This week’s tip comes from Head of Innovation, Anna Younger.

The Prix Pictet is an award for photography and sustainability. So far there have been eight cycles with each highlighting different aspects of sustainability. You can see the latest edition, Hope, for yourself as it has been virtually recreated at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

The artists featured highlights signs of progress and positive change in an ongoing battle to save the globe. Their work reveals moments of triumph in the face of adversity, attempts to regenerate nature, and ways in which we can drive positive change.

The experience has been reimagined with interviews from the 12 shortlisted artists featured. You can explore the exhibition here.