UK Media & Consumer Market Update

UK Media & Consumer Market Update — August 12, 2020

12 August 2020 Zac van Manen

Accurate as of: 12 August 2020

Current UK status:

Visit www.gov.uk/coronavirus for all official information.

As of 6pm on 10 August 2020, a total of 13,453,361 people have been tested for coronavirus (COVID-19), of which 311,641 were confirmed positive.
46,526 patients in the UK who tested positive for COVID-19 have died.
The UK government has delayed easing further lockdown restrictions, following a spike in coronavirus cases in parts of Greater Manchester, East Lancashire, and West Yorkshire. Local lockdown restrictions have been enforced – preventing visiting other homes or gardens and socialising in indoor venues with people one does not live with.
The self-isolation period has been extended from 7 days to 10 days for those who have COVID-19 symptoms or a positive test result.
The UK launched the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme on Monday 3 August, where diners will receive up to 50% off bills at selected participating restaurants and cafes throughout August – aiming to protect jobs in the hospitality sector. In the first week, over 10.5m meals were claimed.

UK travel restrictions:

Visit www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-office for all official information.

As countries respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, including travel and border restrictions, the FCO advises British nationals against all but essential international travel.
A 14-day mandatory quarantine for all UK arrivals except for those announced as exempt. See here for the full list of exempt countries. Countries can be added or removed from this list at any time. For example, Spain, Belgium, The Bahamas, Andorra, and Luxembourg have all been recently removed from the list.
FCO travel advice includes information on any health measures in place for visitors to a country or territory. These can include a requirement to self-isolate, quarantine or undergo testing for coronavirus, or even restrictions on entry.

Latest updates:

With more countries being removed from the quarantine exempt list, the Government warns that there is no risk-free way of travelling overseas (Travel Weekly)
France, Malta and the Netherlands are the next two countries that might be removed from the quarantine exemption list (Telegraph)
The UK has officially entered recession with hospitality and accommodation sectors bearing the brunt hardest, new government figures show (TTG)
Mykonos is feared to be epicentre of the Greece coronavirus spike as officials investigate ‘super spreader’ raves (The Sun)
Egypt has introduced new travel restrictions for anyone entering the country, with tourists forced to have a negative coronavirus test to be allowed to enter (The Sun)
Bars and restaurants in tourist hotspots of Greece are being ordered to close from 12am-7am after the government implemented a late-night curfew in response to a recent spike in coronavirus cases (Independent)
Airlines desperate for revenue but hampered by the entangled web of international travel restrictions have turned to “flights to nowhere” for cash. Two carriers in Taiwan (China Airlines & EVA Air) are the latest to offer ‘flightseeing’ trips to passengers keen to break the monotony of lockdown, while Australian flag carrier Qantas is set to operate tours over Antarctica later this year (Telegraph)
InterContinental Hotels Group – owner of hotel brands including Regent, Indigo, Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza – has reported a halving of revenue in the first half of the year, warning of job cuts (TTG)
New Zealand was coronavirus free for over 100 days until yesterday, when four new cases emerged. Auckland has returned to Level 3 lockdown while the rest of the country has returned to Level 2. An investigation into the source is underway, and it is reported the cause may be imported freight (Independent)
Increased concern among consumers making travel-related purchases is being reported, with one in three (34%) people say they are worried about a travel booking being refunded due to a local lockdown or “second peak” of coronavirus (Travel Weekly)
The number of profit warnings issued by FTSE-listed media companies in the UK hit an all-time high in the first half of the year as the coronavirus crisis sparked a collapse in advertising revenue. Between January and June 59% of the media sector issued one or more profit warnings, with 81% citing Covid-19 (City AM)

Social media:

TikTok remains poised to be banned in the United States by September 15 unless a buyer — Microsoft at this stage — comes ready to purchase it outright off parent company ByteDance. Twitter is also in discussions with ByteDance to purchase the app but, with TikTok’s valuation higher than Twitter’s — and Twitter having owned Vine, the OG short-form video platform — it would be a strange move and a long shot.
To scrape away at some of that sweet audience exodus from TikTok, Instagram has officially launched Reels in over 50 countries worldwide. They’re posting to their Stories examples, tips, and tricks to get you up to speed with Reels as a creator or a brand.
As other social platforms steer clear of political advertising, Snapchat’s gone ahead and added new voter registration tools ahead of the 2020 US Presidential election. A smart move from the youth-focused app in our humble English opinion.
Facebook is also pushing hashtags on platform again as a way of driving conversations around various topics. Facebook hashtags have been a point of contention between social media managers for a few years, with most in the ‘they don’t work’ camp and some even believing — as we do, with some data to support our claims — that they actually negatively impacted Reach. They seem to work similarly to Instagram hashtags and show the number of posts on each of those tags to gauge the level of conversation around them. Jury’s still out so stay tuned. For a fun dive into Internet history, check out the history of the first hashtag.
After a period of testing on larger accounts, Twitter’s now rolling out conversation settings to all tweets. Basically these controls let you dictate who can and cannot interact with you on Twitter. Expect most users’ tweets to remain as public as they are now but some higher profile individuals, people with histories of particularly bad ‘reply guys’, or people who feel unsafe online to take advantage.
Vimeo has also partnered with Pinterest to streamline video pin creation. These underrated sites collaborating is a great initiative though it’s important to note you have to pay for Vimeo Create to be able to access this function. Still, it’s less than Premiere Pro per month so might be worth it for smaller social teams looking to capitalise.
While US politics tends to be the focus of politically-related social news, Ben & Jerrys UK turned cold toward Home Secretary Priti Patel over migrant arrivals across the Channel. We’re not super fans of brands getting political as it’s the perfect way to split an audience who likes your ice cream but what do you think about it?