Consumer Behaviour Changes due to COVID-19 and their Impact on Marketing in the Future

Evaluation and application of theoretical framework

1.Critically understand the connectivity between marketing and consumption, customers & customer behaviour.    
2.Assess and appraise customer behaviour theories and concepts from a critical perspective.     
3.Apply this critical evaluation of customer behaviour theory to the creation of strategic and responsible marketing practice.    
4) Critically investigate research evidence, theories and practice to evaluate change agents predicted to significantly influence the behaviours of customers and event participants in the future.
Your task is to write an essay that addresses the following question in 3000 words:
How has consumer behaviour changed due to covid19? How is this going to impact marketing in the future?
In addressing the above question, you are advised to make the following choices:
1)Choose an industry/sector to focus on (e.g. Electric cars, Luxury hotels, Budget airlines, Chocolates, Mineral water, Taxis, Sustainable clothing etc. You do not need to choose from one of these examples. You can choose any pertinent industry/sector for your essay). 
2)Choose ONE country to investigate.
3)Choose ONE theoretical framework relevant to your investigation (e.g. any of the Decision-Making Models, Theory of Planned Behaviour, Technology Acceptance Model etc. You do not need to choose one of these theory examples. You can choose any pertinent CB theory for your essay). 
Once you make the above choices, you are required to carefully investigate research evidence from academic articles, news from legitimate sources, industry reports etc. to critically analyse how consumer behaviour has changed in response to covid19. To aid you in your academic narrative, you must choose a model to structure this discussion as academic models provide a framework to direct your investigation of consumer behaviour. If there are many ways in which consumer behaviour has changed, you may focus on 2-3 aspects of consumer behaviour that have changed and consequently, only focus on relevant parts of the model to structure your essay to give you a narrower focus. 
Following your investigation, you are required to offer insight on how marketing to consumers in your industry and country will need to be adapted for the future in light of your identified evidence. 
What is this question asking you to do?
You need to evaluate how Covid19 is transforming the behaviour of consumers and consequently how marketing will need to adapt its interactions with its existing and prospective consumers in the future. You should include an account of your transforming/transformed behaviour. 
Concentrate on ONE industry/sector and ONE country. This is because there will be industry sector and country differences and it will be too difficult for you to include these differences within your essay.
Your paper must use ONE relevant academic CB theory to structure and present your analysis. You should justify the use of the theory chosen very briefly and then focus on critically evaluating it within the context of your paper (see guidelines below for further info).
For the future, we recommend you focus on a 5-10 year time-period. However, you may look further into the future if relevant to your industry/sector.
To address this question, you will need to review current evidence and also ideas/future predictions from ‘experts’ in order to identify the impact of Covid19 on consumer behaviour. You will then need to evaluate the existing scholarship available, appraising it against the expert 'future predictions' evidence you have assimilated. 
In your conclusion you must build on your prior argument in your paper (do not just summarise) to evaluate how marketing will need to evolve in the next 5 years. Additionally, you must give recommendations to marketing practitioners on the adaptations to their thinking and practice that they will need to implement.
To support the development of your essay you are predominantly expected to use the university databases to find and utilise published resources, e.g. academic research articles in addition to your own investigation of news articles, industry sources etc.

Suggested Format
Below is a suggested format to develop your essay which mimics the marking criteria listed in the table below. If you wish to depart from the suggested format, please discuss this with your seminar leader. 
Part 1: Introduction (<500 words): Introduce your choice of industry and country and give a brief account of when and in what way did covid start impacting consumer behaviour. 
Part 2: Evaluation and application of theoretical framework (1500 words): Using your choice of theoretical framework, structure the body of your assignment carefully discussing current consumer behaviour in your chosen industry and country. If there are too many ways in which Covid19 is impacting consumer behaviour, we suggest focussing on a maximum of up to 4 issues to investigate and present using your theoretical framework. 
Part 3: The future (500 words): In this section, please do not simply summarise and repeat what you discussed in your essay but discuss how consumer behaviour will change in relation to the identified issues. Specifically, discuss if consumer behaviour will go back to how it was pre-covid, whether it will stay the same or transform in the future. Make sure your discussion of the future is connected and builds upon what you have stated in the body and is backed by evidence.
Part 4: Recommendations to marketing (500 words): This is where you get to be creative! Tell us based on your analysis in part 1,2 and 3 what are your recommendations to marketing? What will they need to do to adapt to this changing behaviour? Please make sure these recommendations are congruent to your identified issues. You DO NOT need to create a marketing plan here, just tell us what the proposed marketing solutions to the issues identified are and justify them with appropriate reasoning.