Heightened Focus on Home Hygiene

COVID-19 is a globally unprecedented event that will impact and shape consumer behavior for the long-term. No sector of the CPG market will emerge unchanged, home care included.
 
In a new webinar available for download now from Euromonitor International, Analyst Ian Bell discusses myriad aspects that will shape the future of home care. He suggests manufacturers assess the changes underway now and look beyond their current competencies to prepare for a new normal.
 
Consumers appear to be much more in tune with home hygiene than they were just a couple of months ago—no doubt stemming from the threat of the coronavirus and efforts undertaken to slow its spread. 
 
In developed markets, consumers had “become a bit laisse faire when it came to home care products, cleaning, clean clothes and hygienic surfaces,” Bell said. “When COVID-19 came along, we had a radical and rapid reassessment of home care products in the mind of consumers in the developed world.”
 
Take home cleaning wipes, for example. In some circles there had been discussion about banning these products; today, retailers are having a hard time keeping them in stock.
 
Additionally, much of the marketing messaging in the cleaning space focused on scent and gentleness, the result of growing chemophobia.
 
But today, consumers are turning to Clorox, Dettol and Domestos—decades-old brands that have built up an “empire of trust,” according to Bell.
 
However, while many companies are enjoying the growth now, savvy brands should be looking beyond sales reports and preparing for the future.
 
“While this is important business growth and important product sales, it also shouldn’t be taken for granted because there is a much bigger world out there…and that is the hygiene ecosystem,” Bell said.
 
This ecosystem, according to Bell, is the junction between appliances, chemistry and human effort.
 
And according to Bell, “this is either going to a place where we have collaboration between consumables and durables, or it will be the new battle front  as hygiene becomes much, much more important to consumers and becomes a key driver of expenditure over the medium- to long-term.” 
 
During the webinar, Bell also provides commentary about a variety of issues—buying behavior,  online retail, home design and technologies like voice activation, UV and robotics—that may rise in importance for cleaning companies as the world comes through COVID-19.
 
“In the new normal, hygiene will be built into everything we do in society,” he predicted.