Using Social Media Analytics to Understand the Impact of Government Intervention on Consumer Behaviour During a Pandemic

The study aims to examine the impact of contagious disease cues and the government’s nonpharmaceutical interventions on customer sentiment related to perishable products with high touch frequency such as fresh fruits during a pandemic. Through social media analytics 659,537 individual tweets were collected from Twitter, by users based in two major cities in Australia (one of two major cities is the world’s longest COVID-19 lockdown). Our findings suggest that in general contagious disease cues will negatively affect consumer sentiment about fresh produce, and this effect is moderated by government interventions. In particular, except for customer sentiment related to the use of chemicals, daily case numbers had a significant negative impact on customer sentiment related to freshness, healthiness and contamination in both Sydney and Melbourne. Compared to contagious disease cues, the effect of government interventions is less consistent between Sydney and Melbourne. The findings offer significant implications for marketers and policymakers to effectively adapt to emerging customer demands and expectations. The results also confirm the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions, specifically lockdowns, in mitigating the negative effect of contagious disease cues on customer sentiment.