Consumer Trends

For the short-term future, social distancing and shelter-in-place initiatives have drastically changed everyday life. Because of this, consumers across Texas have been all but forced to rediscover new behaviors creating a dramatic paradigm shift in trends.

Pivoting right along with consumers, however, is the Texas Beef Council (TBC). Backed by consumer and digital insights, online search data, and research and feedback from the national checkoff, the consumer marketing team assessed consumer online behavior and adjusted its content strategy to match these shifting trends in an effort to continue driving beef demand.

“We are using analytics and insights to inform and provide content that we know people are searching for already,” said Rachel Chou, director of consumer marketing for the Texas Beef Council. “We want to make sure all of our content is relevant, valuable and is addressing the needs of consumers.”

Instead of pushing out segments focused on outdoor activities to prepare for the warmer weather and summer months, the consumer marketing team is hard at work crafting a robust schedule of beef-centric content focused on the new consumer behaviors happening in Texas. Behaviors include:

  • A 250 percent increase in food and grocery delivery searches.
  • Online searches for “Ground Beef Recipes” doubled, and searches for
  • “Immune Boosting Foods” have almost quadrupled
  • A sizable increase in online searches for appliances like freezers and refrigerators for extra food storage.
  • A large upswing in online search queries for comfort foods like meatloaf, pasta and slow cooker recipes in the past two weeks.

From using beef for batch cooking to creating family meals that are traditional and comforting to learning more about the best budget-friendly beef cuts in the meat case, this type of stay-at-home content has elevated into the realm of necessity for the team. This is especially true in
light of widespread restaurant closures which have caused the popular BBQuest series (available on Hulu™) to receive a strategic shift.

As people stay home and watch more streaming TV, BBQuest is still enjoying a great number of viewers. However, promotion for the series and the upcoming third season has been put on pause. “Knowing that a lot of these restaurants are not open right now, we’re trying to be
sensitive to that.” Chou said. “It’s become more about nourishing the people in your home and showing your love cooking.”

As the nation shifts into a new normal, the TBC’s consumer marketing team is still listening and responding with insightful, targeted stories in an effort to drive beef demand across Texas.