As of this writing, billions of consumers live in quarantine. They buy what they need online, comforting themselves with food, TV, and toilet paper. Nobody is splurging at the mall.

To say the least, it is an interesting time to analyze discretionary consumer behavior. As Director of the Voice of Consumer Analytics at Adidas, Tiankai helps measure and manage the perception of a consumer brand that is mentioned on social media an average of 260,000 times per day. An amateur musician, Tiankai went viral himself lately with his series of “Quarantunes,” songs such as “Self Quarantine” and “Parent in Quarantine,” that poke fun at our homebound predicament.

Tiankai recently spoke with Eckerson Group about the art and science of consumer analytics, the COVID-19 conundrum, and (of course) the role of creativity in modern data analysis.