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Authentic Commercial Conversations

Clarks Sunbeat Sandal (tan)

By Diane Crispell

Were you ever talking to someone when all of a sudden you thought – maybe even said out loud – “Gee, I sound like a commercial”? It happens to me reasonably frequently, most recently when I was extolling the virtues of my favorite sandals.

I’m probably more aware than the average consumer of these conversations because I’m involved with market research. But even when people don’t think about it, they’re having lots of commercial-like conversations every day.

When I have my “sound like a commercial” moments, it’s usually followed by the thought, “If only a brand marketer could hear me now…,” partly because it’s always nice to overhear people saying good things about you but mostly because it can be terrifically useful. The odds of that happening in real life are pretty minimal, however.

The Internet provides a way to “overhear” brand conversations, by reading online reviews of products and services and getting involved with social media networks, among other tactics. These are useful sources, but they don’t capture the random and unplanned one-on-one personal conversations that are critical to word of mouth.

How critical are they? According to the recently released Roper Reports^® Worldwide 2010 survey of more than 32,000 people age 15-plus in 25 countries, 43% of global consumers say that the last recommendation they made “just came up naturally in the course of conversation,” as opposed to being a proactive recommendation or the result of a specific request for advice.

Many commercials aim to replicate these happenstance real-life conversations. The venture is fraught with peril, and some succeed better than others. Good acting and well-written scripts are critical, not because consumers will believe these are authentic conversations, but because the more natural the execution, the more likely it is that consumers will think, “Gee, that sounds like something I would say.”

P.S. In case you’re wondering, I love my Clarks sandals, not because of any advertising I’ve ever seen, but because the first pair I bought turned out to be the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever put on my hard-to-please feet. The lesson being that good products naturally generate word of mouth. Where marketers take things from there is up to them.

It Takes Two – What Food Influentials Tell Us about Opportunities Today

By Jon Berry

It’s never been harder to make money in the stock market. Millions of Americans need career help. The world is being tested environmentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It’s time to talk about food.

At least, that appears to be the conclusion of consumers as reflected on the self-help bestsellers’ lists. Six of the top 10 best-selling books on The New York Times’ “Advice, How-To, and Miscellaneous” paperback list are about food. As are three of the top 10 hardcover books in the category.

No other interest comes close. Not money. Not careers. Not relationships.

That’s good news for food marketers.

This is a time for getting people’s attention. And, given the context, no wonder. Food is a source of comfort. It satisfies. And, at least theoretically, it’s something you have a measure of control over. You can’t say those things of the current economy.

However, marketers looking for a single, simple theme in food books will be disappointed.

The organic, holistic approach that has been showing up more in food aisles of the supermarket is represented on the list – Michael Pollen’s Food Rules.

But there are also books on calorie-busting indulgences – What’s New, Cupcake? and Steven Raichlen’s Planet Barbecue.

As well as tough-love books on losing weight – the bluntly-titled The Belly Fat Cure (ouch), This Is Why You’re Fat (double-ouch), and Extra Lean (ok, we get it). And the split-the-difference Cook This, Not That, which offers lower-calorie takes on high-cal restaurant favorites.

There’s also the obligatory celebrity cookbook. This week it’s Skinny Italian by one of reality-TV’s “Real Housewives of New Jersey.” Last week it was Home Cooking with Trisha Yearwood, the country singer.

Meanwhile, the current bestselling hardcover advice book, Women, Food and God, is about women’s relationship with food.

Given these conflicting directions (Comfort food! No, diet! No, locavore!), one might conclude that the marketplace could benefit from an hour or two on the couch with a good therapist to work out its relationship with food.

But within the bestsellers list’s mixed menu is a larger idea that we see in our market research on attitudes toward food – and see in particular in our research with Food Influentials^sm, the 1 in 7 Americans who are most actively engaged in spreading word of mouth about food.

Call it the “It Takes Two” principle (with respect to the old Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell Motown tune). Consumers are responsive to more than one idea about food. Three in four Food Influentials, for example, describe themselves as very interested in foods from different countries. But two in three say they’re always looking for new snacks, like to be among the first to try new food and beverages, and “make a real effort to eat healthy” as well.

And Food Influentials are much more likely to describe themselves in these terms than the average person (by 14 to 30 points) — suggesting these cross-currents won’t be going away anytime soon.

If healthy eating is to grow, then, it should be “healthy-plus” — a healthy nutritional take combined with another food interest.

For some time, we’ve talked with clients about the importance of healthy foods tasting good and being convenient to on-the-go lifestyles. But our research suggests now that’s just the starting point. Healthy foods need to be interesting – offering people new tastes from other cultures, in new forms, with new formulas.

“It takes two” may not explain everything — for instance, the Trisha Yearwood recipe “Garth’s Breakfast Bowl,” named for her husband, country singer Garth Brooks, and combining eggs, frozen tater tots, sausage, bacon, packaged cheese, and garlic tortellini (“not for the faint of heart or high of cholesterol,” Publishers Weekly tactfully notes).

But I think “two” does offer a growth path for healthy foods. What’s next? How about healthy eating ideas from China, Thailand, Africa, or Latin America? Acai, from Latin America, this year’s hot antioxidant (“promegranate is sooo 2008″), may point the way. Or maybe healthier, international evolutions of snacks from energy bars to TV-viewing treats?

It just takes two.

(For more on Influentials, including details on the new Global Influentials research in the new 2010 Roper Reports Worldwide survey, which delves into influencers in a variety of catgories, click here).

Green Responsibility

Politicians, multinationals, consumers – David Crosbie considers who should be taking responsibility for protecting the environment

A couple of stories in the news lately have reminded me of a question that we have previously asked consumers in our GfK Roper Reports Worldwide study – namely, who ought to be shouldering the responsibility for environmental issues.

First of all, the oil leakage in the Gulf of Mexico and the ongoing efforts to stem it are a stark reminder of the responsibilities faced by multinational corporations, particularly those dealing with chemicals or pollutants. When something goes wrong, the consequences can be dire, and citizens expect the company involved, in conjunction with government, to stop at nothing to put the damage right.

Secondly, one of the most interesting stories from the UK’s recent general election – apart of course from the first hung parliament since 1974 and the first coalition government since World War II – was the election of the UK parliament’s first ever Green Party member in the form of Caroline Lucas. This, coupled with the fact that other parties published separate green manifestos, shows that the issue is increasingly important in voters’ decision making process.

As I said, GfK Roper Reports Worldwide tackled the question of responsibility for the environment a couple of years ago by asking consumers around the world to name the one group they felt should take the lead on the issue of global climate change. Globally, 30% replied that this role should fall to national governments, more than double the next most common response (environmental groups) and way ahead of those who cited business and industry or individual citizens.

Given the immense nature of the problem, one might have expected even more consumers to delegate the problem upwards and let government sort it out. However, at the same time a large proportion of consumers do tell us that they feel they ought to be doing something about the issue of the environment themselves, even if it’s something relatively small. It seems that global consumers are aware that dealing with the issue of the environment is not something that they can do solely by themselves, but they are willing to do their bit if they know that other stakeholders in business and government are doing their fair share as well.

One thing’s for certain, it’s a topic that is becoming more and more important, and beyond political parties being judged on their green manifestos, companies are being judged on their policies too. This topic is one of many attitudinal and behavioural measures that feature in GfK Roper’s new Green Gauge Global product, which aims to advise companies on how they can best respond to the changing and complex attitudes of global consumers towards green. For more information, click here.

Ash Clouds Our View of the Future

As the dust settles on an unprecedented week of travel disruption, David Crosbie considers the effect such events can have on how we plan ahead.

In GfK Roper Reports Worldwide, we ask 30,000 consumers around the world about the issues that concern them most. We ask about recession and unemployment. We ask about crime and lawlessness. We even ask about climate change and global warming. We do not ask about disruption caused by volcanic ash, but that has been at the foremost of millions of people’s minds around the world since last Thursday.

I myself was somewhat preoccupied by it as I scratched my head and wondered how to get back to London after a meeting in Frankfurt that was meant to be a day trip. Having unwittingly flown out on one of the last planes leaving the UK, I was faced with the prospect of taking five trains over three days to make it back to the UK.

This gave me plenty of time to muse on the possible long-term implications of the incident. Particularly if the disruption recurs intermittently, could it make travellers more wary and less reliant on air travel, which has become increasingly cheap and accessible in recent years? Would flying be shunned as an expensive, unreliable and environmentally damaging pursuit? Commentators were quick to point out the effects of previous large-scale eruptions, such as the one that may have precipitated the French Revolution. In the event, most people will probably not easily give up the convenience that they have grown used to lightly. But the important point is that just a couple of weeks ago it would be unthinkable to most people that the skies above Europe could be free from air traffic for days on end.

To me, this incident serves to underline that future scenario planning involves acknowledging that in the next five to ten years things will happen that are completely beyond our wildest imagination. Instead we should take into consideration what kind of things might happen, and plan accordingly. Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was widely pilloried for his explanation of this kind of thing, which warrants repetition in full:

“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know we don’t know.”

However, in the business of scenario planning this is exactly the approach to take. GfK Roper Consulting’s TrendKEY global framework of consumer trends provides a model, informed by global consumer insight data, which is designed to help inform a view of the next few years, particularly with regard to shedding light on the things we know we don’t know (or, to add another category to the list, drawing out those things we don’t know we know).

As my illustrious compatriot and national poet Robert Burns once put it in his poem ‘To A Mouse’, “…thou art no thy lane,/ In proving foresight may be vain/ The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley.” While my day trip to Frankfurt proved this sentiment is as valid now as when it was written over 200 years ago, there are many ways in which you can reduce the chances of your future plans going awry, and in a business context, a robust consumer trends product is certainly one of them!

Selling Innovation to Aging Boomers – Is it a good idea or not?

By Diane Crispell

Have you ever had the experience that you were thinking about some great new product that would make your life better, and then it suddenly appeared on store shelves? It’s happened to me a number of times. My reaction has typically been one of delight that someone figured it out, tempered by the (totally unrealistic) regret that I wasn’t the one to do it and ‘make millions’.

As a Baby Boomer, I’ve always enjoyed the benefits of being part of the mass market that all businesses wanted to reach. So it’s not really surprising that my wants and needs have been anticipated through different life stages, from teen skin-care products to family-size frozen-food entrées. But we Boomers are getting older, and older has never been a very popular market, so I wonder whether I will see as many new products directed at my generation in the future. Maybe not.

The fact is that Boomers are not as entranced by novelty as they used to be or as much as younger people are. For example, 33% of Boomers strongly agree they “actively seek new ways to do things in everyday life,” compared with 44% of Gen Yers, according to a recent GfK Roper Reports^® US survey. Similar patterns hold for everything from technology to food.

Does this mean that marketers should focus their energies on selling innovative and status-related products to younger generations and hope that they “trickle up” to Boomers? Maybe, but not necessarily.

Boomers are still a huge market, they are still receptive to innovation that’s relevant to their lives, and it is still worthwhile for marketers to meet their needs. Innovation that addresses the issues Boomers face as they enter new life stages such as empty nesting, grandparenting, and retirement (whatever that looks like for this generation) will be particularly opportune.

There are some areas that virtually beg for innovation on Boomers’ behalf – this is a very health-oriented generation, for example, and if there is one thing that is inevitable about Boomer’s aging, it’s the physical changes their bodies are experiencing.

Speaking of physical changes, the latest ‘product’ to delight me with its timeliness is my local phone book. The newest edition was much fatter than usual, so at first I assumed it included listings for additional neighboring towns. But no, the reason is that the type size is larger than it used to be, and my Boomer eyes are really appreciating that about now.

Growing Into Aging – What jazz musicians can teach us about the graying of the world

By Jon Berry

When I grow up, I want to be Cedar Walton, Jimmy Cobb, or Buster Williams. Not literally, of course. For one, I’m already a grown-up. Second, I don’t have their talent. And, if I did, it still would take six or seven decades to catch up with Walton, 76, Cobb, 81, and Williams, 67, three legends of American jazz.

I recently caught the first set of their five-night run in New York with saxophonist Javon Jackson (a mere stripling at age 44). Over 90 minutes, the group unspooled a vision of aging that was more real – and more appealing – than any that I see in contemporary media or marketing.

What could have been a nostalgic tour through time – Cobb and Walton played drums and piano, respectively, on two of the most influential jazz records of all time, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and John Coltrane’s Giant Steps – instead became a larger lesson.

Playing with force, wit, tenderness, and craft, ranging from hard bop to soft standards, all the while with the intuitive, group sixth-sense of great jazz musicians, they showed that it’s possible to grow into aging, and keep growing, no matter your age.

With the world aging, we need more such visions of authentic aging. According to the United Nations, the median age of the world’s population will rise from 27 years old in 2000 to 38 in 2050; in more developed countries, it will go from 37 to 46. By midcentury, 4 in 10 of the UK’s population will be over 60. In Spain, it will be close to half. The U.S. population over age 65 is expected to double to 87 million people (more than the combined population of the top 10 U.S. metro areas).

And yet, the language and imagery around aging is stuck in clichés of the past. We are to “age gracefully” ($5 to anyone who can convince me of what that really means) or “fight aging.” “Take a walk at the mall.” “Find a hobby.” “Get the early-bird specials.” “Update your estate plan.” Depressing.

There’s a richness out there that, with few exceptions (notably AARP and its publications), is not being captured. It’s not just that people are doing incredible things later in life – though there is that. Yohihisa Hosaka last year broke the 60-plus world marathon record, running the 26.2 mile course of the Beppu-Oit Mainichi Marathon in 2 hours 36 minutes. I don’t know what’s more eye-opening, his new record or the old one, which was only 2 minutes slower. Or Tao, my friend Alan’s yoga teacher, who is still teaching yoga in her mid-90s; she’s also a champion ballroom dancer.

More impressive than the feats, though, is their day-in, day-out immersion in life. Hosaka’s 18-mile training runs. Tao’s daily yoga practice. Cedar Walton sitting down to the piano, which “does everything but say, ‘please come and play me,’” he confided last year to the New York Times. Imagine all they’ve seen, stored, retained.

We’re not, as a society, good at unlocking that treasure. We can’t even agree on definitions – a recent Roper Reports U.S. study shows there’s almost a 20-year gap between where 18-29 year olds (61) and people 60 and older (80) say old age begins. Demographics will change that. The oldsters will become elders – venerated for their experience and insights, and affirmed for their humanness, including quirks and imperfections. Some smart marketer or media person will figure that out and point the way. Until then, check out Cedar Walton, Jimmy Cobb, Buster Williams – or any of the other great jazz musicians who are still growing into their craft, and showing us all how to grow into aging.

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…

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.

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.

Talkin’ ‘bout my generation

David Crosbie (29) never identified himself with a ‘generation’, until now. What could have brought about this revelation?

By David Crosbie

Generational marketing has a long history in the US, but is not so prevalent in the UK, or indeed many other markets around the world. Instead, over here people tend to talk about age bands and socio-economic groups, with phrases such as “25-34 year old ABC1s” being bandied around by media sellers and marketers.

One reason for this is that Britain is still a class-obsessed society. As a Russian colleague once said to me when discussing social classifications, “in Russia we do not have anything like your Cockneys.” Another might be that, on the whole, Brits tend not to think about themselves as part of a cohort group born around the same time. I myself might occasionally muse that I am a ‘child of the Eighties’, or one of ‘Thatcher’s children’, but even that is only to excuse my penchant for the Human League and Eurythmics.

All that changed the other week, however, when I picked up a Sunday supplement (The Observer Magazine, 31 January 2010) and was confronted by a contemporary of mine claiming that he (and by inference me) was part of ‘The Lost Generation’. He argued that it is today’s twentysomethings who are paying the price for the excesses of the baby boom generation, with its free higher education, affordable housing and abundance of cheap credit. We, by contrast, have to contend with thousands of pounds of student debt, saving for deposits on extortionately priced housing and the mess that ensued when the credit bubble burst.

I have to say this is a view that resonated with me. At a time in my life when I should be thinking about going forth and multiplying, I’m worrying about student loan repayments, how to get on the housing ladder and how best to care for elderly relatives. These are of course all concerns that are shared with many consumers around the globe. But is it just a case of sour grapes on the part of a generation that is in fact not that badly off but likes a good moan?

Well interestingly, it’s not just people in their late twenties who are coming to recognise this issue. A leading light in the UK Conservative Party, which is widely tipped to win the country’s imminent elections, has just written a book entitled The Pinch, which explains how, “the baby boomers took their children’s future.” As well as being a baby boomer himself, the author, David Willetts, is viewed as being such a great thinker that he has earned the soubriquet, “Two Brains”.

At GfK Roper Consulting, we examine closely how evolving consumer concerns and needs manifest themselves in changing attitudes and behaviours, and generational and cohort breakdowns by market are key filters for our analyses. A major client study on global baby boomers we carried out last year shed new light on how this generation will differ from today’s over 65s as they enter retirement. I for one will be examining this year’s data carefully to see how my contemporaries around the world are feeling about the challenges we face. If only my question on attitudes to Eighties synth pop had made the final questionnaire…

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GfK Roper Consulting

Authentic Commercial Conversations

It Takes Two – What Food Influentials Tell Us about Opportunities Today

Green Responsibility

Ash Clouds Our View of the Future

Selling Innovation to Aging Boomers – Is it a good idea or not?

Growing Into Aging – What jazz musicians can teach us about the graying of the world

Consumers’ Green Attitudes No Fairy Tale

The Pitfalls of Simplicity

The New Globalists

Talkin’ ‘bout my generation

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