Nicola Austin
Recently some colleagues of mine had the unexpected honour of a phone-call from the Harvard Business Review asking if they would submit an article. Why? Well, it turns out that their approach to understanding the post-recession consumer is something of a rarity.
The resulting article demonstrates the lessons that can be learnt from past recessions if we have the skills to identify the similarities and differences. Now that’s something which marketers everywhere can benefit from. Once we have a sense of the length and severity of the recession our thoughts must turn to understanding the likely consumer response to it. There is much to learn if we know the trends well enough to review and adapt them to the future.
Previous research in the UK suggests that there is a nuanced consumer response to the recession. For some, those who still have plenty of discretionary spending, ‘Thrift is the new black’ but it is more about stepping out of competitive consumerism than actually making cutbacks. Indeed, the spending may be maintained in many sectors but there will be a switch to quality over quantity. For this group the behaviour is likely to last – it chimes with longer term feelings of guilt about excess, of concern about waste and a desire for simplicity. Of course it is not true for all but such behaviour throws up the need to review the trends and their trajectories if we are to communicate appropriately and plan well for the future.
Which trends are accelerating? Which ones have arrested? Importantly (and something that is clearly missing from current thinking) how is the recession affecting different groups of people? Who those groups are and whether they are the right audience for our brands. Copies of the article and the UK research are available for free
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