Eingeschränkte Identitätsprojekte: Wie sich die Maßnahmen zur Eindämmung von Covid-19 auf Konsumenten auswirken

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, governments around the globe have used contact bans, lockdowns, and other measures to contain the spread of Covid-19. These measures constrain us in all aspects of our lives. They change the way we work, with home office work becoming more prevalent; they change the way we interact with family and friends; and they change the way we teach and learn. At the same time, they also change what and how we consume.In a recent program of a news magazine of one of Germany’s main television broadcasters, a woman interviewed on the streets of Berlin voiced her discontent about the fact that she has not been clubbing since March, adding that she used to go out three times a week. Her frustration was tangible as she explained that she relies on clubbing and that making it through the second wave will be difficult. In light of a global pandemic, a first impulse may be to demean the legitimacy of the desire to go clubbing. From a consumer research perspective, however, the clip is indicative of the impacts the pandemic has on consumers’ lives.How can we make sense of the frustration that the interviewed clubber experiences? One obvious explanation is that she longs for the sense of community, (prolonged) hedonism, and escape that clubbing provides (Goulding et al., 2008; Goulding et al., 2010). There is however another angle that explains not only the experience of clubbers, but also the experience of consumers with different hobbies and interests, which they are unable to pursue because of the pandemic – namely that consumers’ frustration is also based on being unable to pursue valued identity projects.