06.03.21
Raymond Chimhandamba
Handas Consulting (Africa Market Nonwoven/Hygiene Specialist), Johannesburg, South Africa
One of the key questions most of us have asked about the effect of the Coronavirus pandemic on human behaviors is which new practices remain for good and which ones will go away with the pandemic. Some behavior—like online shopping and food delivery services—were already in transition and the pandemic simply entrenched the habits or accelerated the change. The pandemic merely accelerated this trend to move even lower down the income scale, thereby showing these income bands the advantages and convenience of online purchases. For that reason, this trend may continue even after the lockdown. I want to assume that because the industry is serving more customers, the cost of these services maybe is dropping or will go down with time?
Companies like Tradeport in Nigeria, whose key role is to link consumer products manufacturers (including essential industries like food products) and distributors and retailers (big and small), were absolutely crucial in keeping small businesses afloat in Nigeria as well as keeping households fed during lockdown. This trend was evident right across the African region. Many businesses even grew bigger after going online than they were before. I read an inspiring story about a young girl whose tilapia fish business was affected by lockdown because her customers now could not come to see her. Her brother owned a motor bike but he had no commuters to take anywhere because of lockdown. She started by selling to her Facebook and WhatsApp groups, her brother would deliver for her, making about eight trips per day around Kampala. She found herself selling to more customers than before and now has a thriving online business. These business changes were brought about by the pandemic.
Education was one of the sectors that was heavily impacted by the pandemic. In the same way, online education as well as home schooling are sectors that have grown significantly since the pandemic. A significant numbers of parents that have discovered the joys of home schooling will continue with this model even after the pandemic.
In all these changes and major shifts, in personal lives and in business, we also started wearing masks. To a point where if you see a video of a crowd without masks, you would be able to tell they must have been in the good old days of pre-Covid-19. On that note, I always imagine that if someone had left Earth to go for a space mission for 15 months in mid-2019 and landed back on Earth in 2020, they would think that they were on the wrong planet!
So the question is, will the masks go away when most of us get vaccinated? In fact the debate has already started. The return to normal will be an interesting journey. But one that we all look forward to—and can’t wait to start.
Some Markets Have Been Wearing Face Masks Even Before the Coronavirus
Ralph Jennings points out in his VOA article how Asia has actually been wearing masks for decades. Although not very common in other parts of the world, in Japan and China people have been wearing face masks for decades for cultural and environmental reasons. He writes, “Japanese wear masks when feeling sick as a courtesy to stop any sneezes from landing on other people. Japanese women mask their faces on days when they don’t have time to put on makeup. Philippine motorcycle riders wear masks to deflect vehicular exhausts in heavy traffic. In Taiwan, citizens say masks keep their faces warm in the winter and offer a sense of protection from air pollution, including any airborne germs.” In some cities in China people have been putting on masks as a way to deal with air pollution. Owing to the size of the population in China, a sizeable portion of 1.4 billion people wearing masks already begins to be an interesting market for a mask manufacturer.
What has been noticeable to a lot of consumers after the first year of Coronavirus—and the first flu season during Covid-19—was the flu transmission was very low. It must mean that the stringent habits to protect ourselves against the Covid-19 has delivered a few positives. In fact most countries reported very low levels of flu in 2020. The WebMD website confirms that the U.S. reported historically low levels of influenza in 2020. To put things into perspective, the same article mentions that the CDC reported 1,585 positive flu cases of any kind, versus more than 183,000 positive samples the same period the year before. The same article quotes Dr. William Schaffner, a medical doctor and infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, whose said, “Nobody has seen a flu season this low, ever. And some of us have gray hair.”
One has to wonder, what will be the effect of such data on wearing masks after the pandemic? Face masks are not a nice thing to wear. We wear them out of necessity, to protect ourselves and those around us. Will people continue to wear them during flu season when they are at concerts and other crowded places, particularly in the winter?
How long would that last? How long did the face mask trend last after the Spanish flu that killed 50 million people? Articles that I have read indicate that it took several years for people to get comfortable mixing in crowds again. At the time of the Spanish flu, the global population was about 1.8 billion, almost 20% of the global population today. Is there a “tipping point ” that kicks in whereby certain habits might stay because they affected a larger population?
As a marketer and a business development person I ask myself, “Using the above data how successful am I likely to be if I used such data in my marketing communication to encourage people to wear masks in winter to avoid flu?” And can you imagine how much savings even the government would make if the flu seasons were to be low going forward? Talk about taking lessons from a crisis? So we take it another step? How successful would a mask manufacturer be if they lobbied with the CDC in their countries to do a marketing campaign to encourage people to wear masks in winter so that they lessen their chances of catching flu? It would be a win-win for both the mask manufacturer and the government (CDC). So for that reason I would certainly ask the CDC to partner with me on this. We both carry the budget for such a campaign. Maybe rather than go in as only yourself and the government, make it an industry initiative. Shared risk means managed and shared losses if any. But wait…it gets better, for a global manufacturer then you would run these campaigns in the northern hemisphere while they are having their winter. And you adapt the campaign for the southern hemisphere’s winters, using all the lessons learned from the other campaign. As a result, you get to keep your face mask sales up and managing the seasonal troughs at the same time. And, you are protecting people from flu….without medication. As Winston Churchill famously and succinctly put it….”Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
What has also been interesting to observe for me regarding popular colors for face masks, outside the ubiquitous sky blue that has pretty much become the symbol and iconic color for disposable face masks, is what other colors are popular for face masks with consumers. Not that I have done the research but my anecdotal view would be that the most popular color for disposable face masks outside the sky blue is black. You could pretty much say, when it comes to face masks…black is the new black. I have been dying to get that phrase out. It’s been ringing in my head.
Non-Protective Uses of the Face Mask. Is There a Market? Disposable or Reusable?
Another angle that could be of very interesting research is this: What effect has the face mask had on human behavior? And I am not trying to be unnecessarily scientific or sound intelligent either. Well, I can confess that it has been scientifically proven that my IQ is above room temperature in summer, but that is very far from the point that I want to make. Masks rob us of our facial expressions, which are a key part of our human non-verbal communication. Part of what we, as primates, use to communicate, even without any sounds.
Personally the reasons I do not like the mask is the way it brings me too close to myself. Make no mistake I love myself. Very much actually. The mirror can bring you close to yourself. But the mask….that’s close. Really close. But yeah…say no more. Nothing brings you close to you than the mask. But at the same time, when we are seeing trends where masks are worn for protection against pollution, against car fumes behind traffic, for keeping the face warm, avoiding sun burns, what other uses for face masks are we likely to see when the global sample group of almost 8 billion is done after more than a year, possibly two but hopefully not? Jennings’ article says that masks have become so popular in Asia that some manufacturers make them purely for fashionable use, with no protective function. Which is a most interesting point.
On the point of whether masks will stay or not, what may be worth noting is the way the mask market has panned out in Asia, post SARS outbreak that spread in Asia in the 2000s. Jennings says in his article, “Masks became a regular part of the street scene in parts of Asia after the deadly severe outbreak of acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that started in China in 2002 before spreading to Singapore and Taiwan over the following year. Today manufacturers in East Asia are pumping out 10 to 20 million units per month.” He quotes Chen Yih-chun, director of the National Taiwan University Hospital Center for Infection Control in Taipei, who mentions how SARS was actually a turning point for Asia and how before that wearing a face mask had a stigma that you must be severely ill attached to it. But since the SARS outbreak, the mask has become more commonplace and Covid-19 is just re-enforcing it.
Handas Consulting (Africa Market Nonwoven/Hygiene Specialist), Johannesburg, South Africa
One of the key questions most of us have asked about the effect of the Coronavirus pandemic on human behaviors is which new practices remain for good and which ones will go away with the pandemic. Some behavior—like online shopping and food delivery services—were already in transition and the pandemic simply entrenched the habits or accelerated the change. The pandemic merely accelerated this trend to move even lower down the income scale, thereby showing these income bands the advantages and convenience of online purchases. For that reason, this trend may continue even after the lockdown. I want to assume that because the industry is serving more customers, the cost of these services maybe is dropping or will go down with time?
Companies like Tradeport in Nigeria, whose key role is to link consumer products manufacturers (including essential industries like food products) and distributors and retailers (big and small), were absolutely crucial in keeping small businesses afloat in Nigeria as well as keeping households fed during lockdown. This trend was evident right across the African region. Many businesses even grew bigger after going online than they were before. I read an inspiring story about a young girl whose tilapia fish business was affected by lockdown because her customers now could not come to see her. Her brother owned a motor bike but he had no commuters to take anywhere because of lockdown. She started by selling to her Facebook and WhatsApp groups, her brother would deliver for her, making about eight trips per day around Kampala. She found herself selling to more customers than before and now has a thriving online business. These business changes were brought about by the pandemic.
Education was one of the sectors that was heavily impacted by the pandemic. In the same way, online education as well as home schooling are sectors that have grown significantly since the pandemic. A significant numbers of parents that have discovered the joys of home schooling will continue with this model even after the pandemic.
In all these changes and major shifts, in personal lives and in business, we also started wearing masks. To a point where if you see a video of a crowd without masks, you would be able to tell they must have been in the good old days of pre-Covid-19. On that note, I always imagine that if someone had left Earth to go for a space mission for 15 months in mid-2019 and landed back on Earth in 2020, they would think that they were on the wrong planet!
So the question is, will the masks go away when most of us get vaccinated? In fact the debate has already started. The return to normal will be an interesting journey. But one that we all look forward to—and can’t wait to start.
Some Markets Have Been Wearing Face Masks Even Before the Coronavirus
Ralph Jennings points out in his VOA article how Asia has actually been wearing masks for decades. Although not very common in other parts of the world, in Japan and China people have been wearing face masks for decades for cultural and environmental reasons. He writes, “Japanese wear masks when feeling sick as a courtesy to stop any sneezes from landing on other people. Japanese women mask their faces on days when they don’t have time to put on makeup. Philippine motorcycle riders wear masks to deflect vehicular exhausts in heavy traffic. In Taiwan, citizens say masks keep their faces warm in the winter and offer a sense of protection from air pollution, including any airborne germs.” In some cities in China people have been putting on masks as a way to deal with air pollution. Owing to the size of the population in China, a sizeable portion of 1.4 billion people wearing masks already begins to be an interesting market for a mask manufacturer.
What has been noticeable to a lot of consumers after the first year of Coronavirus—and the first flu season during Covid-19—was the flu transmission was very low. It must mean that the stringent habits to protect ourselves against the Covid-19 has delivered a few positives. In fact most countries reported very low levels of flu in 2020. The WebMD website confirms that the U.S. reported historically low levels of influenza in 2020. To put things into perspective, the same article mentions that the CDC reported 1,585 positive flu cases of any kind, versus more than 183,000 positive samples the same period the year before. The same article quotes Dr. William Schaffner, a medical doctor and infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, whose said, “Nobody has seen a flu season this low, ever. And some of us have gray hair.”
One has to wonder, what will be the effect of such data on wearing masks after the pandemic? Face masks are not a nice thing to wear. We wear them out of necessity, to protect ourselves and those around us. Will people continue to wear them during flu season when they are at concerts and other crowded places, particularly in the winter?
How long would that last? How long did the face mask trend last after the Spanish flu that killed 50 million people? Articles that I have read indicate that it took several years for people to get comfortable mixing in crowds again. At the time of the Spanish flu, the global population was about 1.8 billion, almost 20% of the global population today. Is there a “tipping point ” that kicks in whereby certain habits might stay because they affected a larger population?
As a marketer and a business development person I ask myself, “Using the above data how successful am I likely to be if I used such data in my marketing communication to encourage people to wear masks in winter to avoid flu?” And can you imagine how much savings even the government would make if the flu seasons were to be low going forward? Talk about taking lessons from a crisis? So we take it another step? How successful would a mask manufacturer be if they lobbied with the CDC in their countries to do a marketing campaign to encourage people to wear masks in winter so that they lessen their chances of catching flu? It would be a win-win for both the mask manufacturer and the government (CDC). So for that reason I would certainly ask the CDC to partner with me on this. We both carry the budget for such a campaign. Maybe rather than go in as only yourself and the government, make it an industry initiative. Shared risk means managed and shared losses if any. But wait…it gets better, for a global manufacturer then you would run these campaigns in the northern hemisphere while they are having their winter. And you adapt the campaign for the southern hemisphere’s winters, using all the lessons learned from the other campaign. As a result, you get to keep your face mask sales up and managing the seasonal troughs at the same time. And, you are protecting people from flu….without medication. As Winston Churchill famously and succinctly put it….”Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
What has also been interesting to observe for me regarding popular colors for face masks, outside the ubiquitous sky blue that has pretty much become the symbol and iconic color for disposable face masks, is what other colors are popular for face masks with consumers. Not that I have done the research but my anecdotal view would be that the most popular color for disposable face masks outside the sky blue is black. You could pretty much say, when it comes to face masks…black is the new black. I have been dying to get that phrase out. It’s been ringing in my head.
Non-Protective Uses of the Face Mask. Is There a Market? Disposable or Reusable?
Another angle that could be of very interesting research is this: What effect has the face mask had on human behavior? And I am not trying to be unnecessarily scientific or sound intelligent either. Well, I can confess that it has been scientifically proven that my IQ is above room temperature in summer, but that is very far from the point that I want to make. Masks rob us of our facial expressions, which are a key part of our human non-verbal communication. Part of what we, as primates, use to communicate, even without any sounds.
Personally the reasons I do not like the mask is the way it brings me too close to myself. Make no mistake I love myself. Very much actually. The mirror can bring you close to yourself. But the mask….that’s close. Really close. But yeah…say no more. Nothing brings you close to you than the mask. But at the same time, when we are seeing trends where masks are worn for protection against pollution, against car fumes behind traffic, for keeping the face warm, avoiding sun burns, what other uses for face masks are we likely to see when the global sample group of almost 8 billion is done after more than a year, possibly two but hopefully not? Jennings’ article says that masks have become so popular in Asia that some manufacturers make them purely for fashionable use, with no protective function. Which is a most interesting point.
On the point of whether masks will stay or not, what may be worth noting is the way the mask market has panned out in Asia, post SARS outbreak that spread in Asia in the 2000s. Jennings says in his article, “Masks became a regular part of the street scene in parts of Asia after the deadly severe outbreak of acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that started in China in 2002 before spreading to Singapore and Taiwan over the following year. Today manufacturers in East Asia are pumping out 10 to 20 million units per month.” He quotes Chen Yih-chun, director of the National Taiwan University Hospital Center for Infection Control in Taipei, who mentions how SARS was actually a turning point for Asia and how before that wearing a face mask had a stigma that you must be severely ill attached to it. But since the SARS outbreak, the mask has become more commonplace and Covid-19 is just re-enforcing it.
