Forethought Mind and Mood Pulse – July 2021

Forethought has been observing Australia's sense of Normality since March 2020 – in July 21 we have observed the sharpest monthly decline since the beginning of the pandemic (down 10 percentage points), primarily driven by the extended lockdown in Sydney.

Analytics, Customer Experience, Creative Efficacy

Forethought Mind and Mood Pulse – July 2021

Posted 17 Aug 2021
Normality Index Chart July2 2021

Forethought has been observing Australia's sense of Normality since March 2020 – in July 21 we have observed the sharpest monthly decline since the beginning of the pandemic (down 10 percentage points), primarily driven by the extended lockdown in Sydney.

Lockdowns alter plans for all (cue border closures, working from home, home schooling, virtual dinner dates and coffee catch ups), as well as changes to routines.

Unsurprisingly, the top 2 key drivers of Normality were Ability to make future plans and Ability to go about my routine outside of the home.

Following Monday 16 Aug 21 announcement of a stricter, extended lockdown once again in Victoria, it remains to be seen how much further Australians’ overall sense of Normality could fall.

NSW CALL FOR STRICTER MEASURES AMID OUTBREAK

Different State Governments across Australia have imposed varying degrees of restrictions in response to their states’ COVID-19 outbreaks.

In NSW, the response by the State Government was deemed by some as a ‘mock-down’; and our latest data reflects this - 1 in 2 Sydneysiders believe that their lockdown measures should have been stricter.

Put in context, nationally 56% of respondents believed that lockdown restrictions were a reasonable response.

ANXIETY, SADNESS AND GOVERNMENT DISTRUST ON THE RISE IN VICTORIA

Despite a majority of Victorians in July seeing the Andrews’ Government response to the latest outbreak as reasonable, our latest Mind & Mood results have nonetheless revealed Victorians are also the most likely to perceive their current pandemic restrictions to be too extreme, with more than 1 in 3 dissatisfied with the severity of the response to the current outbreak.

To compare, just 17% in NSW and 20% overall reported that they believed the pandemic response was too severe.

Meanwhile, Trust in the Victorian Government has been trending downward throughout 2021 and now sits at the lowest level in the nation when compared with other states. Additionally, Forethought’s Emotional Profile metric reveals Victorians to be feeling heightened levels of Anxiety and Sadness when compared with both other states and nationally.

Forethought CEO Diane Shelton said of the latest findings: “Sadness, Government distrust and restriction fatigue are on the rise amongst Victorians in particular, we’ve also found that there is a returning sense among both of our most populated, currently locked-down states that life is worse than this time last year (VIC 43%, NSW 44%).”

“The results in Victoria are particularly concerning given how much of 2020 the state spent in lockdown. It seems that for an increasing number of Victorians, hope is on the wane.”

“We know that Anxiety and Sadness tend to be debilitating emotions rather than motivators, like Anger for example. It remains to be seen whether the states’ declining emotional state will be damaging politically for the Andrews Government”.

To find out more, download the full report above.

ABOUT THE RESEARCH

Forethought has been tracking Australian’s sense of Normality since 27 March 2020 when our world was first shocked by the COVID-19 pandemic. We have been taking a regular pulse of national mind and mood and have now surveyed nearly 20,000 Australians.

ABOUT FORETHOUGHT

Forethought is a leading customer and marketing analytics and strategy advisory firm.

Forethought, with the largest marketing science team in Australia, partners 80 clients in Australia to drive customer and market share growth via providing the evidence and CMO advisory support focused on customer acquisition and retention strategy and market share growth. In North America, Forethought partners with the fastest growing airline, JetBlue as well as several category leading brands.