Over the past 14 months everyone has had to adjust to a new reality and that includes how industries deal with the changes as well. One of the most impacted was grocery and food stores and almost three in five Americans (57%) say they have done the best job dealing with the pandemic. Gen Xers and Baby Boomers/Greatest Generationers are more likely than Gen Z and Millennials, however, to say they have done the best job (61% and 74% vs. 36% and 49%). This is from an online survey conducted by Regina Corso Consulting among 2,099 U.S. adults, 18 and older between April 14 and 17, 2021.
Other industries do not rank as highly as grocery stores as three in ten (29%) say utilities such as electric, phone and/or cable have done the best job while over one-quarter (27%) say the retail industry did the best job and one in five (19%) say the federal government did the best job dealing with the pandemic. Smaller numbers say the news industry (17%), the entertainment industry (17%), the airline and travel industry (16%), the sports industry (16%) and the car industry (11%) did the best job while one in five Americans (19%) say none of these industries have done a good job dealing with the pandemic.
Looking at this from the other side, over one-third of Americans (36%) say the federal government has done the worst job dealing with the pandemic while three in ten (30%) say the news industry has done the worst job and one-quarter (24%) say the airline and travel industry has done the worst job dealing with the pandemic. Over one in five say the entertainment industry (22%) and the sports industry (22%) have done the worst job while smaller numbers say grocery and food stores (15%), utilities (14%), the car industry (13%) and the retail industry (12%) have done the worst job dealing with the pandemic while one-quarter (24%) say none of these have done a bad job.
Overall, Americans believe brands have done ok during the past year. Three-quarters (74%) say brands have done a great job reacting to and dealing with the new normal. The three older generations, however, are more likely than Gen Zers to say brands have done a great job (74%, 77% and 79% vs. 62%).
However, just because brands have done a great job, does not mean they should completely pat themselves on the back. Almost half of U.S. adults (45%) say, because of the pandemic, they have changed brands for things they typically use. Here, Gen Z and Millennials are more likely than Gen Xers and Boomers/Greatest Generationers to say they have changed brands (52% and 59% vs. 43% and 27%). The question is, when things are completely back to a sense of normalcy, will they go back to preferred brands or will they stay with the new ones?
