March » 2010 » GfK Roper Pulse

Consumers’ Green Attitudes No Fairy Tale

Reaction to awareness campaign underlines the controversial nature of this topic, says David Crosbie

Once upon a time – last October in fact – the UK government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) created a TV and poster campaign that highlighted the dangers of climate change in language that all consumers could understand. The series featured well known nursery rhymes, whose original lyrics were altered to take account of the effects that climate change has had on the environment. So for example, when “Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water”, they found that, “[t]here was none, as extreme weather due to climate change had caused a drought.”

The campaign, however, was the subject of nearly 1,000 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) from members of the public who varyingly claimed that it was misleading, scaremongering and frightening to children. In mid March, the ASA ruled that two of the print ads, ‘Jack and Jill’ and ‘Three Men in a Tub’, had breached its guidelines, noting that they “should have been phrased more tentatively.” In the wake of the judgement, some commentators have weighed in with further criticism of the campaign, going so far as to say that it set back public debate on the subject several years.

This incident serves to underline the contentious nature of the issue of climate change. The number of complaints received suggests that there is a body of UK consumers who, if not opposed to the idea of man-made climate change, are sceptical about it and alert to exaggerated or misleading claims made on the subject. The aim of the campaign seems to have been to cajole or even frighten consumers into action by reducing their carbon emissions, but what are the current levels of engagement (and cynicism) amongst Brits?

Roper Reports Worldwide data from 2009 show that 59% of UK consumers agree that “we/I have to do something now to save the planet”, which falls somewhat short of the global average. On the other hand, 27% agree that, “global climate change/global warming is not as much of a threat as the media make it out to be”, again a lower proportion than globally. Rather than leading to increased agreement with the former statement, this latest campaign may have inadvertently led to increased agreement with the latter. The fallout has led some to ask what is the best approach to environmental communication.

While the answer to this query is by no means straightforward, what is not in doubt is the complexity of the debate on this topic. That is why GfK Roper Consulting is taking its consumer research on environmental attitudes one stage further in 2010 with Green Gauge Global, a new product that includes a worldwide green segmentation of consumers. You can now sign up to receive the latest news on this product as it is released, so that you can sleep safe in the knowledge that you won’t miss out…

Changing behaviour for the better

The importance of ‘fun’ in ‘fundraising’

By Anna Clark

At the end of last year, Volkswagen launched an initiative called The Fun Theory, based around the idea that you can use fun to change people’s behaviour for the better. They made some changes to public places to make ‘better’ behaviour more fun – changes such as replacing a normal staircase with a giant piano staircase, where lo and behold, people began to use the stairs instead of taking the escalator. Having set the ball rolling, Volkswagen called for people to submit their examples of using fun to change behaviour, and shared the results on their website: http://www.thefuntheory.com/

This seemed an interesting idea to me – and is an interesting take on the carrot and stick approach. We often talk about the ‘gap’ between what consumers know they should do, and how they actually behave, which spans thing such as health activities, and green behaviours, and other ‘socially responsible’ acts. It seems that in spite of having the knowledge of what they should of, consumers feel they face legitimate barriers such as a lack of money, or time, when perhaps really it’s motivation that’s lacking.

A key criticism of The Fun theory is that the changes they’ve made are clearly a novelty, and while they show a 66% uplift in people taking the stairs that day, would this continue over a longer timeframe, or would people slip back into old habits?

Back in July 1985 Bob Geldof and Midge Ure organised a multi-venue rock concert to raise awareness, and funds for famine relief in Ethiopia: LiveAid. Broadcasts of this event were watched by an estimated 400 million viewers, across 60 countries, uniting consumers across the globe for a few hours behind a single cause. This event arguably spawned a whole new type of fundraising, to the extent that the ‘benefit concert’ is now almost a reflex action when a disaster occurs. Not that I am suggesting this is a bad thing of course, anything that raises money for charity that might not otherwise have been donated has got to be a good thing.

My question is whether the money that these events raise is extra money, or could it be raised without the massive expense and hype of putting on such a major event? Arguably, the event is for many the trigger to a donation – they go, they have a great time, they are moved by what they see, and they donate. The concert is a motivation tool to get people to ‘do the right thing’, and maybe, it spurs people to give who wouldn’t otherwise.

In our Roper Reports Worldwide survey we ask consumers how often they volunteer or help others, and around one in three say they do so monthly or more often. This is remarkably stable across all age groups – suggesting people are volunteers, or they’re not, and this doesn’t change drastically throughout the life course. I’d imagined that volunteering would relate to how much time consumers have available – the more time on their hands the more volunteering they would do.

However, we also asked consumers if they had more time, or more money how they would spend it. Interestingly, around one-third of volunteers would do more for others, while 18% of non-volunteers would do so. To me this suggests that the means we have available in terms of time and money, are only a part of what influences what we are willing to give to benefit others.

Perhaps recognising people’s fickle nature, Orange neatly turned the ‘benefit concert’ on its head, when it developed the Orange RockCorp movement – running for a couple of years now this required young people to do some voluntary work, and one they’ve completed a certain amount, they are rewarded with gig tickets. This truly makes use of a ‘good behaviour and reward’ mechanism, and as it gets people into volunteering from a young age, I wonder if such an initiative might change behaviour in the longer term.

Of course, anything that encourages consumers to be better citizens has got to be a good thing, and if brands can do so, and forge a relationship with consumers at the same time, so much the better.

The Pitfalls of Simplicity

By Diane Crispell

Have you ever noticed that when people use the word “simple,” they often mean the opposite? The phrase “simple assembly” on product instructions is practically a synonym for “complicated beyond belief.” A while back, I came across a purportedly simple recipe for tomato soup that was based largely on using a can of tomato sauce, to which one needed to add a bunch of other ingredients.

I felt that the whole concept was flawed. It’s not that I object to using prepared ingredients in a homemade dish – it was the use of the word “simple” that threw me. If I wanted simple, I’d open a can of tomato soup and be done with it. If I wanted homemade, I’d start with fresh tomatoes, and simplicity wouldn’t enter the picture.

I understand that the intent was to make the reader feel as if they were doing something loving and healthy for their family without scaring them off. It’s a nice idea. There is something very appealing about the notion of simplicity, especially when people aren’t too happy with the way things are. No wonder it keeps cropping up. “In place of materialism, many Americans are embracing simpler pleasures and homier values. They’ve been thinking hard about what really matters in their lives, and they’ve decided to make some changes…. The pursuit of a simpler life with deeper meaning is a major shift in America’s private agenda.” Sounds like a mantra for today, doesn’t it? It’s from a 1991 TIME article.

But frankly, to me, there is no “simple” about cooking from scratch or building a bookcase or sewing clothes, and it makes me feel inadequate when I don’t feel up to tackling these “simple” tasks.

I finally figured out what the disconnect is. “Simple” has two key meanings – “easy” and “plain.” These are not the same thing by a long shot. Any designer can tell you that “simple,” as in unadorned or clean, is not easy to achieve. Any number of books and web sites dedicated to the so-called “simple life” make it clear that living in a down-to-earth and unpretentious way is a lot of work.

It turns out that simplicity is not top of mind for consumers anyhow. It falls smack dab in the middle of Americans’ personal values spectrum, ranking 28out of 54 “guiding principles” in their lives, according to the 2009 GfK Roper Reports® Worldwide survey. (This is true globally, too.)

This suggests that “simple” does not need to be slathered all over everything but used judiciously and clearly. If you mean easy, say easy. But if you mean doing things the old-fashioned way, having less stuff, saving time, or being more organized, just say so. If you say simple, you run the risk of irritating people whose definition doesn’t match yours.

It’s also important to know your audience. A book titled Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple might sound like an oxymoron to most of us, but reader reviews on amazon.com suggest that for medical students, it lives up to its name.

I like the way Back to Basics Toys puts it: “Committed to being your best and most-trusted source for classic and quality playthings with excellent craftsmanship and value.” Nothing about simplicity. We bought a balance board from them a few years ago, which my son uses while juggling – no simple task. Of course, there was our neighbor who, when he saw it, thought we were silly for paying for something that would be “simple” to make. For him maybe, but for us, it was a whole lot easier to buy.

Cooking for all curries favour in India

It seems that traditional gender roles around food are changing in the sub-continent.

By David Crosbie

One of the highlights of my recent trip to India was sampling what is surely one of the world’s best-loved cuisines in its natural setting. As well as giving my taste buds a treat, the exercise should help me to judge, and thereby wax lyrical to my friends about, which of my local Indian restaurants offer truly authentic dishes, and which serve up ersatz fare that is more geared towards the jaded British palate. Yes, I will become even more of a globalisation bore.

However far more interesting and relevant than the quality of my local takeout’s Bharwan Aloo, particularly for global food marketers, are the changes that are taking place in Indian kitchens, particularly with regard to who does the cooking and why.

Big news in India at the moment is that the nation’s favourite chef, Sanjeev Kapoor, is planning to launch a 24 hour satellite TV cooking channel this summer. That such a channel is being contemplated is acknowledged by Kapoor himself, quoted in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, as a reflection of Indian consumers’ changing relationship with cooking, as they see it less as a chore and more as an enjoyable leisure activity.

“Twenty years ago if you said you cooked, people would ask what was wrong with you. Now it is the opposite,” he says. “For the moment it’s [just] the new middle class, but the beauty of India is that things spread very fast.” Even more interesting is the growing interest of men in the topic, with Kapoor also revealing that 49% of visitors to his website are male – a 20% increase on two years ago.

Apropos of the interest that Kapoor’s activities generate, one Indian market researcher is quoted as saying, “No one had any idea there were so many people interested in cooking as a hobby and as a creative art.” Roper Reports Worldwide data show that 40% of Indian consumers say they cook for fun at least once a month. What is particularly interesting however, and ties in with what Mr. Kapoor has found in his web traffic, is that the proportion of Indian men who claim to cook for fun monthly or more often has increased from 14% in 2007 to 24% in 2009.

All this suggests that, as in many Western markets, the culinary dynamics of Indian families are changing, with men becoming more and more interested and involved, and marketers in related categories should bear this in mind in their NPD and marketing communications. Oh, and if any of them are looking for a culinary-astute male to taste-test their latest Indian creations for the UK market, just send them my way…

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The New Globalists

Leapfrogging the recession by going abroad

By Jon Berry

One friend’s child, a 2008 college graduate from California, is in his second year teaching English in Madrid, Spain’s, public-school system. Another friend’s child, a new grad from upstate New York, is coaching lacrosse at a private school in northern England. Two others chucked their entry-level jobs to travel, respectively, to Kenya and China. Another latched onto a puppetry workshop in Italy. Another went to Greece to build up her photography portfolio.

I’m not sure at what point one can declare a trend. But going abroad is becoming to this recession what graduate school was to past downturns – a strategy for leapfrogging the economic cycle with an experience that will make you more valuable for the long term. It’s not just young people. A parent at the school where my wife works is transferring to the Singapore office of an investment bank. But the young are a driving force. A major motivation for the parent was to give his kids the experience of living in Asia; it will good for their economic futures, he says.

Welcome to the next era of globalization. Global growth, as measured in economic data, may have slowed. But the idea of globalization is streaming forward. And it’s become more personal and generational. It’s as if a 21st-Century Horace Greeley has said, “Go West, young people. And East. And North. And South.”

Forget “Gen Y.” The true handle on this generation is globalization. Call them the New Globalists. Or New Frontierists. Or the Marco Polos. Or the Gaias (for their combination of globalism and environmentalism).

Three Cups of Tea

Reared on books, movies, and international campaigns expressing a passion for the world and the possibility that progress can come from connection – Three Cups of Tea, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Doctors without Borders, Partners in Health – at a time when falling trade barriers and a growing Internet are bringing the world closer together, New Globalists live in a fundamentally different world than their parents. They likely will teach their elders the tools of globalization the way previous generations taught their parents how to use the remote control.

I think the threat that people my age see in globalization – that way we robotically append “competition” to the word “global” – says more about our fears than reality. We react the way our parents reacted to the social and technological changes of their time.

Did you see Google’s Super Bowl ad that tells the charming story of a cross-Atlantic romance through a series of Google searches? (I’ve linked to it below.) It’s a great ad, and it’s great because it’s true. Many people have a version of the Google-changed-my-life story. Mine is about my daughter. As she was approaching graduation from college, her advisors told her she should find a writers colony. They suggested several in the U.S. But my daughter, thinking an expat-in-France experience would be more to her liking than Provincetown in winter, Google-searched writers colonies in France. She emailed applications, and voila, a few months later was at an artists colony in France, the only American among sculptors, painters, videographers, and writers from Africa, Europe, Latin America, and Asia (and at a very low price).

When we hear stories of a college student going to Scandinavia, striking up a relationship with a young business-school student whose concentration is business in China (a program started because so many Scandinavian companies have operations in China), then continuing that long-distance relationship (another true story), we tend to marvel, like with the Google ad. “Wow, isn’t that amazing.”
Be ready for more such stories. The New Globalists travel great distances, strike up relationships, and come back with new ideas and amazing stories with the ease that my Indiana farmer grandparents took Sunday drives to Cincinnati. I believe it cuts across class lines more than people suspect: a job on the factory floor in Indiana can lead to a promotion to a job in China (another person I know).

We’ve begun to see the shift in our research; for example, a recent GfK Roper Reports U.S. survey found that the #1 thing Gen Y (aka the New Globalists) would like to do at this stage of their life is “visit other parts of the world”; 84% agree. But this story is just beginning. Businesses should think about fashions, foods, objects, books, programs, and ideas you can introduce from other parts of the world – and about how you can facilitate this new generation’s adventuring.

GfK Roper Pulse

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Consumers’ Green Attitudes No Fairy Tale

Changing behaviour for the better

The Pitfalls of Simplicity

Cooking for all curries favour in India

The New Globalists

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