In nearly two months, the Occupy Movement protests have captured heaps of global media attention. The movement started in Kuala Lumpur in late summer, quickly followed by New York City (the Occupy Wall Street Movement) and San Francisco. By October, nine Occupy protests had taken place in over 95 cities across 82 countries. Here in London, the protests began in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York. The London Stock Exchange was the initial target but attempts to occupy the Paternoster square where thwarted by the police and the protesters ended up outside St. Paul Cathedral. On my way to work, I frequently walk past St. Paul and past the encampment; I often stop and observe what’s happening as I am fascinated by the activities on the site. The protests have sparked much discussion in our office, as I’m sure they have across the UK.

Many protesters have put up flyers, posters or flags and one of them has particularly caught my attention. The flag states: ‘Grow The Real Economy: Time, Experience, Wisdom, Knowledge, Learning…’. The text has sparked my interest as I wonder how much these values and aspirations actually resonate with the wider UK population.

What is fascinating is that despite the protesters only representing a minority at the moment, it can be argued that aspects of this slogan chime with wider consumer sentiment in the UK and globally. For instance, according to the latest GfK Roper Reports Worldwide data, almost a third of consumers in the UK prefer more time over money (27%). Not only that, our ValueScope model also identifies Wisdom to be a rapidly growing global value (values being defined as guiding principles in our life). Wisdom is a state of being that involves knowledge, understanding, experience, discretion, and intuitive understanding, along with a capacity to apply these qualities well. In this sense, it is the judicious application of knowledge. People who value Wisdom also value Knowledge and Learning, and they want others to have equal opportunities. And finally, the protesters also call for more experience. On this score, our Trendkey 3.1 product identifies Experience as a key trend for the UK and globally: consumers around the world increasingly identify with what they have done, seen and been to rather than their material possessions and the stuff that surrounds them. They are on the look-out for anything new and exciting and are increasingly seeking out shared experiences with friends and family.

The Occupy Movement certainly isn’t mainstream and its impact currently limited. But as this example shows some of its aspirations are already more widely held (if less vocal), and could be a harbinger of how consumer sentiment will evolve.

An uplift in pigeon fancying says a lot about Chinese consumer trends, says David Crosbie

I had to wonder if my ears were deceiving me one morning the other month, as I woke up to news on BBC Radio’s Today programme that pigeon fancying is gaining in popularity amongst wealthy Chinese, with prize birds being snapped up by Chinese buyers at auctions around the world for what seem to the layman like vast sums of money.

The reason for my surprise is that in the UK, pigeon fancying and racing is viewed as a primarily working class pursuit, once popular among the proletariat in Northern towns. History, however, combined with consumer insights from Roper Reports Worldwide, show that my initial disbelief was unwarranted.

First of all, pigeon breeding has a long history in China, dating back to the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), when they were used as carriers of messages, though the practice was later banned during the Cultural Revolution due to its capitalist overtones.

Secondly, and more insightfully for marketers looking to appeal to the emergent Chinese middle class, this example highlights the willingness of moneyed Chinese consumers to spend lavishly on symbols of wealth and success, preferably those which convey a sense of status and heritage. It is part of a wider phenomenon that includes Chinese interest in the international fine wine market, and their voracious appetite for luxury goods with prestigious brand names.

GfK Roper Consulting tracked and foresaw this development in Chinese consumers using our ValueScope tool, which monitors the Personal Values of consumers in 25 markets worldwide. The behaviour outlined above is entirely in character for those consumers with an Achiever mindset, which accounts for 40% of the Chinese population (vs. global average of 25%). For more details on how to target Achievers in China and elsewhere, as well as to learn what’s next for global consumers, contact us.

A reminder that a great purchase doesn’t outweigh a negative purchase experience.

By Anna Clark

It is an oft-spoken cliché that British people love to queue. The author George Mikes, best known for his humorous commentaries on various countries and their citizens, said, “An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.”

The recent UK General Election saw the highest turnouts for 13 years, which resulted in long queues and, in a number of cases, people still queuing by the time the polls closed, meaning they missed out on their vote. One wonders whether people would have patiently queued (in the rain) past the deadline in other countries. That is not to say that there weren’t angry scenes when the truth became apparent, but there weren’t reports of people forcing their way in or worse still, queue-jumping.

I recently found myself musing on this topic when supporting some friends at a battle of the bands contest, where, after the last band finished their set, the crowd of thrashing metallers* formed an orderly queue on the dance floor to place their vote. It seemed an unlikely sight, but perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised.

When it comes to Personal Values, in the UK, like most other countries, concepts such as ‘power’ and ‘self interest’ rank at the very bottom of the pile, according to the Roper Reports Worldwide study, suggesting consumers just aren’t willing to put their own needs before other peoples’ (or to admit to doing so).

While it’s clear that people will queue, it’s important that companies don’t take advantage of this tendency toward civility. Queuing to vote, or to get tickets for must-see concerts is one thing, but when consumers have a choice of vendors available to them, one with a swift checkout and better customer experience will win through. When a queuing procedure is deemed to be poorly organised or people are left unsure where to queue, this can damage overall satisfaction and reduce chances of a return visit.

And of course, queuing doesn’t stop at the shop door. Numerous horror stories abound about hours spent on hold to speak to people at call centres, while good experiences can encourage loyalty and recommendation. I recently called a customer service line where I was given a choice of hold music to make my wait less frustrating. Small touches like this may not cost much but can be worth a lot. Time spent in a queue is time spent in the care of your brand, and regardless of how good the purchase might be, the overall experience matters, too.

* If you’re unsure who or what a ‘metaller’ is, check out the Urban Dictionary definition!

By Jon Berry

What do you get for a car that’s gone the extra mile for you? How about a trip to the car wash and replacing its missing hub cap?

Last week our 1998 Toyota Camry turned 175,000 miles. Fittingly the milestone came on a trip to the grocery store. While this mild-mannered sedan no doubt has daydreamed of lighting out for the frontier for a Blue Highways adventure, its reality has been more George Bailey than William Least Heat Moon.

There have been a lot of trips to the store in this car. And commutes to work. Drives to school. And to the movies. The odometer may evoke adventure – 175,000 miles is equal to 60 drives across the country. But the furthest West this car has been is trips to my parents’ farm in Indiana.

This has been a family car. It’s been through two kids growing up and going off into the world; two dogs (note the chew marks on the rear-seat seatbelts); family vacations to the beach (sand in the trunk); Christmas trees (pine needles); and trips to college (amazing how much can be crammed into defined spaces).

We still have a ways to go to catch up with the Depression generation. I am reminded of this every time I travel out to Indiana to visit my Dad, go into my Dad’s barn, and see his two tractors – a shiny red 1940s International Harvester and his “newer” model, a shiny blue early-1960s Ford. Add one more reason to hang onto the 175,000-mile Camry – to see how its story turns out.

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.

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