Winning in the Rebound: Opportunity and Risk Behind Complex Tribes that Make up Britain’s post-Covid Consumers

According to a new VCCP Collaborative report, Post-Covid Rebound Britain is redrawing the nation into new tribes along complex psychological lines, with major long-term impacts on their consumer behaviour.

Michael Lee, chief strategy officer at VCCP, believes: “brands that don’t recognise these new complexities are as much at risk of missing out on significant opportunities as they are on wasting their marketing investment on the wrong audiences.”

Things used to be pretty straightforward. Simple descriptors such as disposable income, age, sex and category behaviours provided a reliable way for consumer-facing businesses to predict how different segments of the public were likely to spend money on their products and services.

But the pandemic has ripped up that rule book. We know things are going to be different. But how? What will the Covid Rebound look like? What does it mean for brands? Feast or famine? The Roaring 20’s or Ration Era 50’s?

There will certainly be long lasting financial implications for many, but there’s also something far more subtle and potent that brands will need to grapple with in the post Covid world; deep psychological and attitudinal changes affecting whole life outlook.

Following Rishi Sunaks budget outlining his fiscal measures which will enable Britain to rebound, recover and rebuild, VCCP Collaborative’s report 'Winning In The Rebound', demonstrates how the financial and psychological impacts of the pandemic combine to create five new consumer tribes whose spending will be shaped not just by disposable income but by their emotional response to the pandemic. 

The report sizes and profiles each tribe using TGI analysis, and reveals which types of brands and categories are likely to be beneficiaries and losers amongst each of these segments, identifies opportunities and risks for brands and outlines strategies for engaging with the tribes in the post-Covid world.

The five consumer tribes featured in the report:

1. Revenge Spenders - Back with a bang, looking to make up for lost experiences


2. Rationers - Surplus money to spend but fearful of future austerity


3. Resetters - Looking beyond Covid to make life changes which reflect the bigger issues of climate and sustainability


4. Rewarders - Not much money but looking to make life enjoyable again


5. Recovering - Struggling before Covid and now hit by unemployment and reduced future opportunities


Marie Oldham, executive chairman of VCCP Media, said: “Understanding the rebound tribes gives us greater insight and agility in our targeting and media buying, reducing ineffective wastage and enabling our clients to invest smartly against audiences whose needs they can meet now and in the future”.

Michael Lee, chief strategy officer of the VCCP Partnership said: “We produced this report to give our clients a competitive advantage in a highly volatile time. Understanding the psychology of our audiences has always been something we place great value in and this study reveals how critical this will be in the next few years”.

To find out more about the report, or to request a sector/brand specific segmentation of the five tribes, please contact here.  

Winning in The Rebound is a collaborative research project undertaken by VCCP and VCCP Media. Collaborative is VCCP’s insight platform, showcasing the collaborative thinking of its strategists from across the VCCP Partnership which include specialists in media, communications and experience design.

Report Authors: Michael Lee, Jake Webster, Marie Oldham, Steve Taylor, Andrew Perkins, Andrew Phillips