Eleanor Cooksey writes:

I have been enjoying the current BBC Radio 4 series ‘A History of the World in a 100 objects’ in which Neil McGregor, the Director of the British Museum, tells a history of humanity using objects from the museum’s collection. As I listened to his intricate description of the pestle, it made me realise that objects, things, ‘stuff’ – or however we like to call them – still have a very important role to play in our lives.

It is often easy to assume we live in a ‘post material’ world, but in a post credit crunch recovery marketplace, should we re-evaluate how we think about ‘stuff’? Looking at data from our 2009 Global Monitor Survey suggests that it is perhaps worth reviewing our hypotheses. Consumers are less likely to agree that they have all the material things they need: in the UK, this dropped from 60% in 2008 to 56% in 2009. In fact, the only market surveyed where feelings of material satisfaction have increased is Australia. Moreover, though we may not have everything we need, we are also less likely to buy more as spending without consequences is no longer in favour.  Again, all markets – bar China – are showing a greater reluctance to take on debt. This suggests we are more likely to value what we have now.

Our research also suggests that people are still as interested in spending on experiences as accumulating possessions, but this is less about extreme experiences, and more about the enjoyment of simpler pleasures. Such pleasures, in fact, could consist of listening to something interesting on the radio, or going to a museum.

The image above is from the BBC’s ‘A History of the World in 100 Objects‘ website, and is used with thanks. For more information about accessing Global Monitor, please contact our UK Marketing and PR Manager, Jennifer Childs.

Andrew Curry writes:

Whatever the disappointments about the Copenhagen talks, it’s clear that consumers have fairly strong attitudes to sustainability issues, and these  have barely been affected by the financial crisis. That was the view of a recent report on our Henley Planning for Consumer Change [PCC] research in New Civil Engineer. Indeed, politicians seem to be lagging consumers on the question of sustainability.

The managing director of The Futures Company’s London office, Will Galgey, told NCE that “The key thing is that there hasn’t been a significant diminishing of engagement with environmental issues. In fact we see the importance of those issues continuing to rise.”

At the same time, consumers increasingly see the links between environmental behaviours and financial prudence. But not all businesses seem to have registered this.

Frank Price, sustainability director at the engineering consultancy Grontmij, argues in the article, “Some businesses may be tempted to reel in their focus on sustainability, based on a false belief that the finances needed to introduce sustainable practices could be better spent elsewhere. On the contrary, businesses that are looking to save money and reduce costs should be looking at their sustainability measures as a priority.”

The costs of not increasing the level of business sustainability are likely to be measured in business reputation. PCC data show that 79% agree that companies have a responsibility to support the communities they operate in, and businesses are identified by some distance as the group “most at fault for causing environmental damage”. At the same time, trust in businesses continues to decline. Potentially this adds up to a vicious circle in which it is difficult for businesses to increase their credibility – or a welcome opportunity to rebuild trust.

For more information about accessing Planning for Consumer Change, please contact our UK Marketing and PR Manager, Jennifer Childs. The picture at the top of the post is from Australia’s fmcg sustainability institute, and is used with thanks.

• A startling look at some London locations, now and in the 1870s. You can catch the full exhibition for free at the British Library until March.

• In the aftermath of the Copenhagen climate summit, come these not so good things we’ve seen; this map starkly shows the globe if countries are resized to represent their fossil-fuel based emmisions:

Whilst this one shows the countries sized proportionately in terms of the predicted distribution of climate-sensitve diseases, such as malaria, malnutrition, and diarrhea:

The maps are from the UN’s State of the World Population 2009 report (Via Global Dashboard).

• The world’s first supercomputer – Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine -  has been rebuilt in California. It’s essentially a very large calculator, but it’s quite spectacular to watch in action.

• Shereen El Feki, an academic from Cairo, talks about the potential for pop culture in the Arab world. And on a similar, but slightly more provocative note, here’s more anecdotal evidence of Western cultural influence in Afghanistan.

• Google Chrome’s new advert shows the latest features for its browser with an ironic twist.

• And finally – on a completely frivolous note -  Bruce Lee plays Table Tennis with Nunchucks, taken from Gawker’s Top 100 viral Youtube videos of 2009. All are shorter than 3 minutes!

Compiled by Oliver Wright

It’s been a little while since we last posted an assortment of links, but this is a selection of some of the things which have been going round the office lately:

• Boris – the London Mayor – officially launches the city’s ‘cycle superhighways’, a cycle hire scheme, and demand for cycle parking in the capital is (apparently) on the rise…
• The inside-out bloody mary – a new take on an old classic!
• By way of previewing a forthcoming post on data visualisation – two great articles discussing the state of the art on CNNtech and Creativity Online
• This fun website from Dutch company Hema (similar to Ikea in the UK) won some awards for its playful approach to household products. Although the site’s in Dutch, the visual gags are pretty universal.
• Portuguese workers are struggling in the recession to find jobs – and some are heading to former colony Angola in search of better fortunes
• The Atlantic publishes a somewhat timid and fairly American list of ‘Brave Thinkers’ – I mean, Steve Jobs? Mark Zuckerberg? We’re working on a list of people who deserve a place but aren’t here. Do you have a contribution?

Andrew Curry writes:

Another organisation which has changed its name recently is the National Consumer Council, which became Consumer Focus on 1st November – not just a piece of rebranding, since it took on new responsibilities at the same time.

As part of the planning for the handover, we ran a futures project with the NCC on how consumer advocacy would look in 2020. The report was published by the NCC shortly before the handover.

The analysis and the process are laid out in the report. The work identified four significant challenges for 2020 – some adaptive, some emerging:

• Engaging the less-engaged: How can consumer policy advocacy organisations continue to engage and maintain their dialogue with an increasingly diverse and fragmented population?

• Supporting empowerment: How to provide consumers with the skills and confidence to promote and protect their interests, to ensure that they get a fair deal, and that they have access to the right communication channels to make their voices heard.

• Managing consumption in a resource-stretched world: How will consumer behaviour and advocacy change in a world in which consumption is more constrained?

• Global relations for the benefit of consumers and producers: How to operate at a sufficiently global level to give consumers power over global and international matters which affect their interests.

The report’s not currently available from the NCC site, one of those technicalities to do with reassigning NCC legacy pages to the new organisation’s web site. For the moment, therefore, you can download it via the link below.

And a word about the picture at the top of the page; it’s by Ian Mcdermott, an illustrator who sat in on the futures workshop abd sketched his impressions of the discussions going on around him. The work he produced on the day illustrates the report – a series of visual metaphors, if you like.

You can download the report here:

ncc2020_viewofconsumerfutures

From Rashbre Central

Joe Ballantyne writes:

I was browsing in the wonderful Rough Trade record shop in Notting Hill the other day, and I noticed that they’ve started an ‘album club’ service. For a monthly fee they send you a new album, chosen from a selection and tailored around your musical preferences.

At first glance, this looks like a rather counter-intuitive business decision – half the fun of going to Rough Trade is about rummaging around the racks in search of lost gems. If CDs arrive on your doormat every month, even with Rough Trade packaging wrapped around them, there’s less chance of randomly coming across a few titles that you feel you may just have to take home. It also seems quite old-fashioned, in an age when music distribution is increasingly digital and consumers are supposed to be sovereign.

However, the idea of the album club seems to fit into a wider trend we’ve been observing recently – ‘choice editing’. Consumers are exposed to an ever-growing selection of goods, services and brands (and the number of CDs released every year remains high despite falling sales) – but at the same time there is some evidence that we’re less interested in spending time sifting through them. Making choices takes time and energy – both resources which we are short of. The choice editor becomes an trusted (and expert) friend who can cut through the market noise.

Perhaps in future, it won’t be endless choice which is going to be seen as a luxury – but rather, being able to pay others to make our choices for us. But only a few companies have sufficient credentials to earn that trust.

The picture – of Rough Trade West in Talbot Road – is from the Rashbre Central blog.

Rachel Claydon writes:

Momentum around the issue of toxic-free consumption seems to be building. New research released recently by the principal investigator at the Medical Research Council’s Human Reproductive Sciences Unit, Professor Richard Sharpe, provides further evidence of links between the toxic chemicals contained in many everyday products and major heath issues. This recent study warns that chemicals found in many cosmetics can damage the reproductive system in male foetuses, especially during the eight to twelve week stage of a pregnancy.

While the research was based on tests with rats and does not provide conclusive proof of harm, it nonetheless resonates with previous studies which point to a link between infertility problems and testicular cancer, pollution and chemicals in everyday products, and pregnant women are nevertheless being advised to avoid using perfume and scented creams.

Cosmetics are not the only products causing concern. Carpet, bedding, cling film, air fresheners and non-stick pans are among a number of household goods containing chemicals that campaigners believe have not been adequately safety tested. And American research published this week suggested an association between Bisphenol A – a chemical found in plastic packaging for food and drink – and the incidence of heart disease and diabetes, although it is a ‘preliminary’ stidy and it didn’t show a causal connection.

Toxic accumulation has been on environmentalists’ radar since the 1960s, and there is a growing body of regulation to try to tackle it. The issue is increasingly reaching the general public through media coverage of this kind of research – “Perfumes linked to infertility” screamed the front page of London’s Metro in response to Richard Sharpe’s research. Increasing consumer awareness of toxins in everyday goods is an important emerging trend, and we are seeing growing interest in toxic-free products such as Ecover and organic cotton. Producers who want to stay ahead of the trend would do well to check for poisons in their supply chains – before campaigners or researchers do.

The image is a plot of the sexual relationships of students at Jefferson High School occurring within the preceding 6 months

Trevor Harvey writes:

Over the past few years, society has moved stealthily from viewing sex as a commodity, to the commoditisation of sexual relationships – the ‘free availability’ of the relationship surrounding and driven by sex.

The development of technology has facilitated easier sexual relationships, including changes in pornography and sexual material. Top Ten Reviews reported in 2006 that 43% of internet users viewed porn, and 35% of all downloads were porn, while porn sales themselves have been dropping rapidly over the past few years. Technology means that anyone with a mobile camera can now be a porn star or producer.

In fact, technology has touched all aspects of sexual relationships – from user-generated content sites such as XTube, PornoTube and Gaydar, to the public spat between Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia co-founder) and Rachel Marsden (the end of whose sexual relationship was played out in Wikipedia and eBay), to the re-interpretation of pre-arranged marriages through online sites where daughters are promoted by the parents. MMOEGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Erotic Games), which provide a safe haven for people to have sex virtually, are showing a rise in numbers – showing perhaps that while sexual relationships are increasingly treated as commodities, we’re still concerned about their safety.

And for good reason. The effects on health and well-being are alarming. A 2007 BMC Public Health study showed that a third of 16 to 35-year-old men and nearly a quarter of women questioned said they drank to increase their chance of sex. HIV infection rates rose sharply (by 48%) in the US between ‘05 and ‘06, according to the US Center for Disease Control, and also increased (less dramatically) in Western and Central Europe in 2007, despite years of public health and education campaigns. Other disease infection rates are as alarming: the Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV reported that sexually transmitted infection rates have risen rapidly over the past 12 years, with incidences of Chlamydia and HIV both tripling, gonorrhoea doubling, and syphilis increasing by twenty times.

There have also been disturbing changes in the sexual relationships of children and young adults. UNICEF reported last year that more children in the UK have had sexual intercourse by the age of 15 than in any other country. UK Government figures show that the UK has the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Western Europe, while the sexual health of young adults in the UK has deteriorated over the last two years. In the US, the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last year that one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease. Meanwhile, by way of further evidence that the commoditisation of sexual relationships is affecting teenagers and young people, media reports say that the number of teenage girls having breast implants have more than doubled in the past year in both Britain and the US.

Sex is a powerful motivator in human behaviour and society and when it comes to analysing trends we must understand it as a significant driver of change. But as a rule sexual relationships are something we prefer not to think about in this context. If we are to seek a rounded view of the behaviour of consumers, we need to consider the increasingly apparent commoditisation of sexual relationships, which is starting to raise moral issues for brands, and for products and services, as well as for society.

Andrew Curry writes:

The latest edition of our free e-letter, HenleyMail, has gone in the last week or so to those who have signed up to it. There are two main articles: Trevor Harvey looks at the credit crunch through the lens of Henley Centre HeadlightVision’s Financial Services Segmentation, and there’s an interview with J. Walker Smith, the Chief Executive of Yankelovich, which merged with HCHLV earlier this year. Among other things, we asked Walker about the major trends he saw in the US market at the moment:

We talk with our clients about three overarching dynamics – empowerment, purpose and health. Empowerment is simply the fact that unprecedented access to information is putting consumers in charge of the marketplace. Purpose is a newfound priority on the quality of life not the quantity of stuff, and so people are actively seeking more meaning and fulfillment in their lives. And multiple pressures, some demographic, some regulatory, some economic, are putting a premium on better health, particularly better preventive health which is one of the key initiatives in our business right now.

The full HenleyMail can be downloaded here. If you want to sign up to the newsletter, which is an occasional publication, you can do that here.

The painting at the top of the post is by the American painter Debora Gilbert Ryan: ” I did this series of rather simple encaustic and oil paintings … in the mid-1970’s. People liked them a lot until I told them they were paintings of envelopes. In certain circles, any sort of representation was looked down upon.”

Jo Phillips writes:

Our More London office reopens today after two days of closure following the Great Flood of Tooley Street. Some took the fact that the nearby Greater London Assembly building was out out of action in the week of the mayoral elections as a bad omen for Ken Livingstone. The events have demonstrated rather vividly the vulnerability of all city infrastructure; you might have thought a fifth floor office would be immune (I did), but servers and electricity supply in the basement are – unsurprisingly – vulnerable to street level flooding. Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospital was similarly affected.

In this instance, 7 million litres of water poured out of a burst water main. But it gives us a glimpse of a possible future London — as we see more climate-change related extreme weather events, what will change? What I learnt was that crises in the real world push us further into the virtual world. With email and phone systems down, our company used text messages and a blog to disseminate important information. Local residents similarly used the SE1 community forum to communicate with each other. One possible outcome is an increase in mobile working (or more exactly, ‘extended working’, in which the workplace is extended in space and time), but this leads to interesting questions about infrastructure. Maybe not that sensible to leave it below street level when the local flood risk map looks like this:

So maybe there’s likely to be less emphasis on managing your own infrastructure, and more on getting it delivered to you as a service by a supplier – already a strong developing trend, as Nicholas Carr blogged this week. Having servers down in the basement may provide an illusion of control, but would not prove very resilient in a world of increasing environmental risk.