By: Steve Hoch
At a recent meeting of the Marketing Science Institute (MSI) in Phoenix, I had the pleasure to facilitate a session of some 30 marketing chiefs whose companies are members of the Institute.
For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the MSI, I'll tell you briefly that it's an institution in Cambridge, MA, whose purpose is to "bridge the gap between marketing science theory and business practice". It supports academic research for the development of leading-edge marketing knowledge on topics of importance to business. Its membership is basically a Who's Who of America's most prestigious companies: General Electric, Merck, Clorox, Conde Nast, Coca Cola, Vanguard, Time Inc, Yahoo and several dozen others.
The people I interacted with that day were a savvy group of senior marketers who had gotten together to discuss a number of issues that marketers are talking about and paying attention to these days. They don't have a choice about it - their jobs depend on their being on top of changing consumer dynamics.
I posed the question, "How are you doing things differently today because of changes in consumer behavior?" From that emerged a rich discussion of consumer trends circa 2008. The purpose of this piece is for me, first, to list the 17 trends that the marketing directors identified, and then to concentrate on 3 that I think are particularly relevant.
I might add that the fact that Proteus is on top of these trends, and has been for many months, gives me great confidence that we're ahead of the curve in ways that are of great benefit to our clients.
The 17 consumer groups are as follows:
Of these, the 3 I want to concentrate on are Smart, Busy and Green. For marketers, their implications are clear and likely to persist in the years to come.
Smarter Consumers
These ain't your grandfather's consumers. Or, to put it another way, marketers these days are selling to increasingly smarter, wiser, better-informed consumers. Education is part of the reason. In 1940, 4% of the American public had a bachelor's degree. In 2006, that number had increased to close to 30%. On top of that, there's the extraordinary access to information consumers enjoy today. The ability to do a custom search for information that the Internet - and Google in particular - has made possible means every consumer can become a mini-expert on an endless number of subjects. Smart consumers have a greater ability to control their destiny and their media consumption than ever before. You can understand why smart marketers do well to recognize that they're not going to get away with pulling the wool over consumers' eyes. After all, consumers have never been more cynical than when they encounter a hollow pitch they've already seen before.
The implication for marketers: give consumers pertinent, relevant information they can use to make sound judgments. Anything less ultimately insults them and discredits you.
Busier Consumers
Do you know anyone who has enough time these days? I certainly don't and neither did the marketing chiefs. They say we're working more hours than our parents did. And even when we're not at work, our Blackberries are there to tether us to the job. The truth is, virtually all of us face a time crunch of epidemic proportions. In order to squeeze more time out of 24 hour days, consumers have become incredibly adept at multi-tasking, whether it be trip chaining our way through chores and shopping on the weekend, to watching a football game at the same time we work on our laptops and listen to our MP3 music players.
The implication for marketers: figure out what matters most to the consumers you want to sell, and streamline your messaging to them. Trying to say too much in an era of limited time is insensitive and counterproductive. Just as important is identifying product opportunities that truly provide consumers solutions to everyday problems that save them time, effort and advanced planning
Green Consumers
Remember when it was the bark-eaters and nature lovers who cared about the planet? Well, guess what? In the majority of American communities today, it's all but impossible to find anyone who doesn't have at least some environmental sensitivity and who doesn't expect the same from the companies he or she buys from. Think of it as the greening of America illuminated by compact fluorescents.
But green can be complicated. For example, if you Google "the pros and cons of ethanol," you'll discover there are 72,800 entries. Yes, ethanol is both a great way to reduce levels of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere and a great way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. But corn-based ethanol production is energy intensive, and in some instances, it uses nearly as much energy to produce (including the energy needed for farming and making fertilizers) as it supplies. Smarter consumers can be skeptical and are attuned (along with those green bloggers) to companies that sing green, but in actuality are hypocritical in their product offering or corporate behavior.
Similarly, manufacturers can take steps to minimize their environmental footprint, but rarely can they do it without encountering an unassailable financial fact: it usually costs more. Can consumers be expected to absorb those costs?
The implication for marketers: green is not going away, and so firms need to make the commitment now to position themselves for operating in an environmental climate. This is not about jumping on a green bandwagon.
Steve Hoch is responsible for the development of retail brand strategy at Proteus. He is the Baker Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and was previously a professor at the University of Chicago. He is the director of the Baker Retailing Initiative, a research center focused on bringing together students, retailers and faculty. Steve is also associate editor of Management Science Journal of Consumer Research.