• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, June 15, 2020

Data collected and shared separately by two companies shows a change in consumer behavior during the past few weeks since the death of George Floyd, who died on May 25 at the hands of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. 

Harry Maugans, the CEO of Clickagy, which provides a cookieless data technology that rivals an offering from LiveRamp, hadn’t seen anything “crazy,” but seemed curious to identify any changes.

On the request, Maugans had the team at Clickagy, a data intelligence company that anonymously identifies and segments audience-based data, analyze the first two weeks of May vs. the two weeks immediately following Floyd’s death and the onset of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The data found that online content consumption about Civil Rights rose more than 556%, and interest in guns and ammunition spiked more than 270%. The need for information about philanthropists and charitable activities increased 210%.

Consumers also increased their research on security cameras, a category that saw a 153% spike. Searches around government reform research saw an increase of 41%.

Clickagy gathers this data through a “living ecosystem” where every 12 hours re-computing every one-mile geoblock globally to identify data clusters. These clusters are expanded and contracted to adhere to privacy regulations.

During the first full week of BLM protests around the world, Eyeota, an audience targeting platform, saw an uptick in audience data spending in certain advertiser verticals and data segments likely associated with continuing pandemic-related stay-at-home guidelines. 

The data pulled between May 24 and June 6, 2020 showed that the fastest-growing advertiser verticals by week-over-week audience data spend were consumer packaged goods such as food, beverages and paper goods. Then came healthcare and healthcare providers, followed by entertainment and media such as gaming.

The fastest-growing data segments by week-over-week audience data spend were healthcare professionals, mothers, pet owners, IT professionals, video gamers, and education seekers, according to the Eyeota Audience Marketplace.