Festive decorations on Orchard Road, Singapore

One of the things that struck me on my recent visit to Singapore was how much more lavish and festive were the Christmas decorations than back home in ‘austerity Britain’. That in itself is not surprising in today’s globalised world, where even in non-Christian parts of the world, consumers can engage in the commercial aspect of Christmas, no doubt to the delight of marketers. At the same time, as our latest Global Pulse client deliverable points out, there are signs that what has been an exclusively American phenomenon, Black Friday, is now spreading to other parts, including neighbouring Mexico and Canada. The UK has also seen some limited activity, with retailers such as Amazon and Selfridges offering Black Friday deals, and the Guardian newspaper offering its readers a handy primer on the day’s origins. We have also seen the spread of Cyber Monday around the world, when consumers get their online Christmas shopping underway in a big way.

What strikes me in all this is that whereas Cyber Monday can be seen in some ways to be a natural phenomenon (i.e. it’s the day that many people just happen to do their Christmas shopping online) Black Friday, though it may have started off that way (people have a day off, so they do some gift-buying), it is now a proactive promotion by retailers to get people in the shops. It seems to be only in the past few years that retailers in the UK have had lots of promotional events before Christmas – it was naturally a busy time, and the clearance promotions came afterwards. Is it perhaps a sign of growing desperation among retailers that they are forced to encourage people to shop at times when they used to do so anyway?

Our Global Pulse analysis shows how consumers in certain markets around the world are more amenable to such deal-driven events – in other words, the potential for Black Friday to go global. It’s interesting stuff. The challenge for retailers and marketers is to create new retail ‘events’ in the calendar, without straying in the territory of so-called Hallmark Holidays. My favourite example of this is White Day in Japan – a day invented by the confectionary industry in 1978 to encourage men to buy women chocolate in return for the gifts they received on Valentine’s Day one month previously (when women buy chocolate for men). Today, it’s something that everyone in Japan knows about and undoubtedly generates a lot of revenue. Indeed, I gave and received my share of ‘courtesy chocolate’ when I lived there…

By Kathy Sheehan

In unveiling market research online, a critical component for businesses is to have an intimate knowledge of the consumer-both on- and offline. It is time to review, reassess and understand how consumers are going to re-ascend as we move forward in 2010 and the next decade. So what can we expect from consumers in the wake of the recession?

We start off by exploring the concept of “The New Normal”. Many marketers are using this term to describe the post-recession consumer mindset. However, we at GfK Roper Consulting don’t necessarily agree that we are operating in a “New Normal”, for a few reasons. Proponents of the New Normal speak to the idea of how everything has changed and consumers’ behaviors are forever altered. While, certainly, elements of this are true, it is an over-simplification of a much more complex and nuanced situation. Indeed, in some categories and with some consumer segments we see attitudinal or behavioral shifts that appear to be sustained, but in other areas, we see consumers reverting back to past habits. And, perhaps more importantly, the “new normal” is by no means a global construct. Yes, we have experienced a global economic crisis of unprecedented proportions, and it has been the first recession that has been truly global. Yet, when we drill down a bit deeper, we see that really the global economic crisis has been a series of local economic crises – each market being impacted and reacting in slightly different ways.