Covid-19 Daily Bulletin 26/08: Back to School Apprehension

Notepads and masks at the ready.

Welcome to today’s bulletin. This time we’re taking another look at student returning to school and the apprehension coming with it.

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Going back to school becomes even more difficult

The back to school conversation is difficult for many reasons this year – primarily because of safety, but also because of confusing new policies and reported product shortages.

Apprehension grows

Unsurprisingly, back to school social media chatter is full of apprehension about children and teachers returning to in-person classes as well as the potential for another year of online learning.

Our Consumer Research platform showed that from March 1 to August 24 this year, key topics within back to school conversations are:

Children (695k mentions)
Concern about timing (226k mentions)
Teachers (127k mentions)
Face coverings in school (55k mentions)

It’s clear that uncertainty about Covid-19 is weighing heavily on consumers’ shoulders – it’s hard to tell if it’s too soon to go back and what measures will be most effective.

The apprehension was picked up by our emotion and sentiment analysis. 50% of back to school mentions were classified as sad while 16% of mentions registered as containing anger. Sentiment-segmented conversation was 58% negative.

Consumers struggle to find computers

Students of all ages are heading back to whatever their new schooling looks like, and laptops are one of the hot items on the back-to-school list (both for in person classes and learning from home). But many of those looking to buy laptops are having no luck.

When we looked at general mentions of intent to purchase a laptop (not just related to back to school), we found that mentions were high in common lockdown months. But they increased again in July as people started getting ready for the new academic year.

In the last five months, conversation was in part driven by home working (22k mentions) and coursework (49k mentions) but it was primarily focused on price (847k mentions) and performance (404k mentions).

In the same period, there were 830k complaints about a lack of availability and sentiment analysis reflects the frustration. 65% of those mentions were classified as negative, driven by consumers being unable to purchase their desired product.

Instead of buying new laptops, some consumers are thinking outside of the box. We found 39k mentions of people looking for recommendations about refurbished products and 96k mentions about hiring or renting a personal computer for a period of time.

While many consumers are worried about in-person classes and the measures that will be in place, people are trying to make the most out of a tricky situation. Communication from all brands and institutions involved in the back-to-school effort will be key to rebuilding confidence.

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Stay safe,

Brandwatch Response Team

Digital Consumer Intelligence

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