Our lives have been upended by COVID-19. Lockdowns, social distancing, wearing masks, and work-from-home arrangements became the new norm. Online shopping for groceries and food deliveries also increased, alongside medical teleconsulting and pharmacy deliveries of medicine.

But which behaviors are going to stick? And what do these new behaviors bring to the table?

We did a survey of 500 Filipino respondents. And these are some of the things that we found out —

• 66% of Filipinos said that they are going to continue attending online courses to learn about new topics that are relevant to themselves even when the lockdown orders are lifted.
• 58% are going to continue online shopping for food and grocery items after the lockdown orders have been lifted
• 46% are going to continue online shopping for non-grocery items, such as beauty and health products and personal tech gadgets
• 55% are going to continue using web conferencing tools in order to stay in touch with others online. This is in addition to chats and instant messaging that are already a normal in the lives of Filipino consumers
• 51% are still going to be doing online food deliveries even when the lockdown is finished — most likely to cope with the continued closure or limited services of restaurants, cafes, and fast-foods in the country.

All these data points to the digital medium being a significant channel in the lives of consumers post-lockdown. It is true what they say: Digital transformation of companies is going to be accelerated by COVID-19! Companies and brands have no choice but to accept the fact that people have been digitally transformed themselves — and companies and brands have to digitally transform, too, in order to keep abreast with their customers.

What else do these trends point to?

This migration towards digital channels also point to a significant opportunity for client and brand marketeers: With the significant move to digital and online channels, client and brand marketeers have the opportunity to collect data about the behaviors of their customers (with permission, of course) and act on those behavioral data signals in their digital media, messaging, and content campaigns.

Now more than ever, client and brand marketeers have the opportunity to unlock the real power of digital channels — data-based optimization of budgets through permission-based data gathering and activation. With the data signals that are being shared by consumers as they navigate through the digital channel, we have the opportunity to collect them (with permission), analyze them, and deploy them in our campaigns — so that our campaigns become more precise and targeted, more relevant, more effective.

The ball is in the hands of client and brand marketeers — the question before them is obvious: What are you going to do with the data signals that your customers are creating with every interaction they have with digital channels? Are you going to pounce on the opportunity to be relevant and precise, or are you going to simply let the tides bring you where they may?