Andrew Curry writes:

‘Comfort brands’ seem to be one of the phenomena of the current recession, according to the current issue of Marketing, which talked to  our UK managing director, Will Galgey, as part of its research.

As Will told the magazine,

‘It’s definitely the case that people are retrenching to what they know and trust, and takes them back to times past. We’ve identified 10 key global energies; one of these is embracing the authentic, which means people want brands that feel grounded and real. We feel that is accelerating through the recession.’

And reassurance seems to be important; one of the few categories where trust hasn’t fallen is for independent high street retailers.

But there are some nuances here. Heritage isn’t the same as old-fashioned, suggest other interviewees in the article, and authenticity isn’t the same thing as nostalgia. Nor does ‘Britishness’ seem to be a winning strategy, at least on its own: the article qu0tes research from HPI which found that 24% of consumers agreed that during the recession they were trying to buy British, whereas 31% disagreed and 44% were indifferent.

But some sense of ‘localness’ does seem to have value in consumer’s minds, a point underlined by Nathan King of Dairy Crest, whose Country Life brand has done well from their advertisements showing Johnny Rotten doing irony about Britain. King sees this as a long term trend, not a recession blip:

‘The ’80s were very selfish, the 90s were a bit more holistic, and the noughties and beyond will be more community-based and back-to-basics… there’s still a lot of uncertainty. The economy will start picking up, but the mindset of the people will stay like this for quite a while.’

Our most recent research suggests that even in recession price is still only one part of the value proposition, and not necessarily the most important one. Companies need to draw on other qualities as well. Virgin’s anniversary ‘heritage’ ad was more about service, with a hint of innovation and a sniff of old fashioned glamour (or sexism). Country Life affirms its ‘local’ credentials by rebuking them, then reminds us that it’s a premium product (’better butter’). You know what you want – and you know how to get it.

The picture, of Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, made famous by Hovis’ advertisements, is from The Latest on Advertising, and used with thanks.

Alex Steer writes:

The avocado pear’s name is the product of selective memory. Our word for the South American vegetable comes originally from the Nahuatl word ahuacatl, which means ‘testicle’. This unfamiliar word was borrowed into Spanish, but mishearing and confusion with the easier-to-remember word for ‘advocate’ or ‘lawyer’, avocado, led to this being used for the pear. Avocado was borrowed into English in the late 17^th century, and has stuck.

The avocado has in recent weeks found itself at the centre of a standoff between two supermarkets. Sainsbury’s and Marks and Spencer have launched TV adverts – commemorating their 140^th and 125^th anniversaries respectively – in which they each appear to take the credit for introducing the avocado to Britain. The avocado is now an advocate in supermarkets’ increasingly fierce battle for market share, but it is arguing the case for both sides.

There has been no shortage of ads harking back to the past recently – Sainsbury’s, M&S, Hovis, Persil – and no shortage of commentators noticing this. Most have identified that behind these campaigns lies a perceived yearning by consumers for the securities of nostalgia and tradition. Hovis’s strapline – ‘As good today as it’s always been’ – resonates with wary, recession-weary shoppers who are longing for a little sanity. Nostalgia brands are brands that have stayed the course; brands you can trust.

But Sainsbury’s and M&S are not just saying they are reliable retailers. They are saying they are responsible, ethical ones, and that they always were: employing women, helping the planet, doing their bit for the war effort. These campaigns are histories, written to appeal to the values and good citizenship modern consumers seek from brands.

The demand for corporate social responsibility is relatively new, and it’s hard for older brands not to look like they’re jumping on today’s bandwagon, compared to new brands who have built CSR into their blood and bone. By framing their histories in terms of modern values, retailers are telling consumers that, unlike the avocado, they were always advocates, representing quality and fairness. It remains to be seen if consumers will buy this, or conclude that it’s all a load of ahuacatls.

The picture at the top – a photograph of a painting – is borrowed, with thanks, from Betweenland on flickr.

Camilla Parke writes:

I must admit that I sat a little uncomfortably through the opening minutes of The End of the Line, the documentary screened on World Oceans Day, in which violent shots of blood drenched waters were interplayed with images of bloated Europeans gorging on sushi. My guilt is not misplaced; as an unquestioning consumer I have contributed to the problem journalist Charles Clover uncovers in this film: the little known damage that overfishing is doing to the world’s oceans. Significant improvements in fishing technology, huge increases in consumer demand and poorly enforced, inadequate quotas have decimated our seas. The impact on biodiversity is alarming: if overfishing continues at its current rate, scientists predict we will be out of most fish by 2048.

The plight of one endangered species in particular – Bluefin tuna – was explored in the film, and the press this week have focused on those retailer and restaurateurs that have (and have not) responded to calls to find more sustainable alternatives. A number of places are getting it right, and have been for some time – Feng Sushi in London’s Borough market has been sustainably sourcing its fish for the last 10 years. But for larger companies, the challenges are more significant.

Japanese restaurant Nobu seem unfazed by petitions from its celebrity diners to remove Bluefin from its menus, content to mention its endangered status on the menu and discretely suggests diners choose an alternative. Others are responding more proactively: Marks and Spencer has committed to only using pole and line caught tuna in its entire range of products; Pret a Manger is making a similar commitment.

Alongside the statistics, one of the most powerful learnings from the film is the fact that it is still possible to reverse the fortune of our oceans – as Clover points out, the answer is ‘not rocket science’. Although one hurdle is the inadequacy of current policy, one of the most important things we can do as consumers is to make more noise. Ask shops and restaurants how fish is sourced, and avoid those that are unsustainable. This really means thinking more and consuming less – a challenge given our love affair with eating fish. But if we don’t want to go hungry in the future, do we really have any other choice?

The photo at the top is borrowed, with thanks, from the End Of The Line website.

Sarah King writes:

At The Futures Company we do a lot of segmentation work, for organisations trying to get really new insight into their audiences – who they are, how they behave, their attitudes and values. Segmentation helps our clients to drive genuine customer orientation across their businesses, with a shared perception of customers resulting in far more relevant offers. We shared some of our current thinking on how to get the most out of any segmentation project at a breakfast briefing for clients earlier this week.

Here are some tips from the presentation:

1. Understand what you’ve already got – companies have plenty of data already, and it’s almost always more cost-effective to build on this. Add it to our insight and it can give you a real head start.
2. Make sure you know what business question you’re trying to answer with the segmentation.
3. Plan how you’re going to implement the segmentation before you begin – make sure you have a clear view of the end from the starting line and design your segmentation accordingly.
4. If it’s your first time or there is a lot of change in your category, consider whether you need some exploratory qualitative research to help you understand how people divide and what questions you need to ask in your survey
5. Remember that the segmentation work sits inside the business, which needs to be engaged in the process – before, during and afterwards. Bear in mind that you will have to resource embedding it in the business – both socially and in your daily business processes. You might need to access budgets other than the Market Research one.
6. Avoid “the big reveal”. Get senior sponsorship for your project and take people along with you as you go, rather than trying to surprise them with the brilliance of the insight at the end. Less dramatic, more productive!
7. Keep the segmentation story as simple as you can, without compromising the quality of the insight or the data. It makes a big difference if people in the business can keep the segmentation in their heads.
8. Choose names for the segments which show respect for your customers and don’t caricature them. As the segmentation gets used by the business, the names will end up framing the way you think about customers.

It’s also worth looking at the post about segmentation in the public sector, based on an IIPS event held in the spring.

The cartoon is by Jake Goretzki.

Andrew Curry writes:

It’s always a pleasure to see good design, especially in unexpected places. This was the ticket I got when I played a round of crazy golf at Puckpool Park on the Isle of Wight last weekend. Less paper, less hassle, less waste. And quite a good size for a bookmark afterwards.

Anouk van den Eijnde writes:

The majority of the world’s 6.5 billion residents now live in cities – cities that are often overpopulated, congested and hostile to pedestrians and cyclists. Take Mexico City, for example, with a population of more than 20 million people: it suffers from pollution, traffic, water shortage and a high crime rate. The once attractive public spaces are now deemed by local residents to be too dangerous to spend time in. The mayor is slowly tackling these issues by revitalizing its historic centre, improving public transport and dealing with its acute water shortage. But what do residents really want from their cities?

Caracas-based architects Brillembourg and Klumpner, founders of the Urban Think Tank, are consulting local residents and community groups in an attempt to find sustainable solutions to the city’s ever-exploding population. Their focus is on the growing ‘informal cities’ where four out of its six million inhabitants are squatting the hillsides in self-built constructions. One of their initiatives is a cable car system connecting the valley to Caracas’ public transport system. Their site has an engaging video about their work.

Taking a leaf out of the ‘livable streets’ initiative - which encourages people to re-imagine how their cities would be if they were healthier and more sustainable – the American magazine GOOD asked people to do just that, and redesign their streets to make them more ‘livable’. The task was to take a photo of a street or intersection you know and hate, then use Photoshop or other image software to make the changes you wanted to see. Green spaces, bike lanes, street art, playgrounds, exercise machines – it could be anything. The winners, though mostly North American, demonstrate the value of visions in making change, and there’s also a whole gallery of entries.

Another example of involving people in urban design is Fix My Street, a UK website from the team at mySociety that allows people to report local problems like vandalism, broken lights and litter. You can simply type in the postcode online (or on your i-phone), find the location on the map and type in the problem. Comments are then sent directly to the local council on the users’ behalf. Who better to influence the design and maintenance of neighbourhoods than its local residents?

Compiled by Tom Ding

Passed around the office lately were:

• A comparison of the news-to-death ratios of Swine Flu and Tubercolosis by Hans Rosling, adding an interesting perspective to Alex’s earlier post. Guess what: lots more people die of TB, but it hardly gets any news coverage.
• Naturally 7 wowing the crowd with some full-on beatboxing, in whch they impersonate a small orchestra, a video from this year’s TED conference.
• A great little insight on depictions of the future in advertising, still strangely trapped in some old-fashioned futures borrowed from the 1970s.
• The idea bounty, where creative sorts can sell ideas straight to brands. Although, as our IT Manager pointed out, the terms and conditions make for scary reading, and might just be enough to make you think twice about offering your best ideas.
• And finally, is it co-creation? is it mass customisation? is it an inventive way of improving the margins on crisps even further? The picture at the top of the post top might offer some clues. Whichever it is, the new Create-a-chip Kit from Kettle Chips is only available in the US at the moment, so we’ll have to leave that piece of research to our American colleagues.

Tuck in!

Andrew Curry writes:
Suddenly, ’sorry’ seems to be the easiest word, at least in London. Quite apart from politicians saying sorry, eventually, about their expenses, we’ve had Marks and Spencers saying sorry for charging more for bigger bras, and (as Andy Stubbings has mentioned here) the London Evening Standard saying sorry in an extensive poster campaign for, well, for pretty much everything.

It’s true that the Standard’s branding is discreet and it’s mostly done by typography, but it seems as if the paper is saying sorry for being complacent, predictable, negative, and out of touch among other things.

As ad campaigns go, it has the merit of getting them talked about (as this post demonstrates) although for this non-reader the Standard was always a smug evening paper which pandered to the prejudices of its core audience in the commuter belt.

Indeed the whole campaign, prompted by the arrival of new Russian owner and new editor, feels like they’ve done some focus groups with lapsed readers and slapped the findings straight on to the billboards. (Which saves the inconvenience of a debrief, I guess).

Will any of these work? I think the M&S apology will – it’s a simple issue with a simple remedy. I’m sceptical about the other two. In the face of their respective declining markets, both paper and politicians will find that saying sorry isn’t enough.

The picture at the top, published under a Creative Commons licence, was taken by renaissancechambers, whose photostream is here.

Andy Stubbings writes:

Pessimism is an often underrated emotion. In this dismal economic climate, brands like Schweppes (with their series of woodcut style print ads that send up British political figures) and even the Evening Standard (with their “Sorry” bus and tube advertising) have sought to capitalise on consumer discontent and, most probably, a simmering resentment towards our political and economic institutions (for a wonderfully vitriolic example of this anger, see Matt Taibbi’s ‘The Big Takeover’).

However, no mainstream brands appear to have done this as explicitly as Shredded Wheat in the US. The “Progress is Overrated” print ad above is part of a campaign by cereal manufacturer Post to publicise the simple, unchanged origins of their product. As you would expect, the long-copy form and type-setting feel of the print ad are wantonly old-fashioned, conveying “back-to-basics” message (although the slapstick tone of other campaign media feels at odds with this). What is especially interesting about the copy, however, is that it namechecks waste concerns, resource shortages and the impact of climate change as evidence that we have not progressed (though curiously no mention of the financial crisis. The people who buy Shredded Wheat are mainstream American consumers, many of them mums buying for their kids. The tone of the campaign (by Ogilvy & Mather in New York) implies that research has found this attitude reasonably prevalent in the target audience, which suggests that consumer discontent may be quite widespread.

While it may be difficult for established brands like Schweppes and Shredded Wheat to reinvent themselves as the Voice of Discontent, I think there is a substantial opportunity for less well-known brands to take this on, in the way that Mountain Dew reinvented itself as the ’slacker’ brand in the midst of the corporate greed of the 1980s. With so many brands offering similar messages of solidarity and empathy with consumers at the moment, it might be that pessimism proves a smarter and more distinctive position.

The picture is borrowed, with thanks, from Noise Between Stations.

Yannis Kavounis, the head of our Millenials Knowledge Venturing team, talks to Tom Ding

Tom: Yannis, I have been meaning to ask you about Millenials and the recession…

Yannis: Recession, anxiety, layoffs… I’m personally exhausted from all the speculation and debate around it. Let’s talk about something more uplifiting: change and our future.

Tom: Sure. But where will the change come from?

Yannis: Well, not from government and politicians. They are only trying to resolve the problem using the same tools and context that caused it. So what’s left? Us – ordinary people, and Millennials of course. Millennials are connected and aware of the power of the collective. They have the technological and creative tools to take risks. And most importantly they’re young, not jaded and realise that grassroots overhaul of our economy and values is the only way forward.

Tom: I have seen a few diffferent versions of Millennials and Generation Y, what is your definition?

Yannis: At The Futures Company we say Millennials are the cohort of people born between 1979 and 1992, or roughly those aged between 16 and 29 at the moment.

Tom: OK. So give me some examples of these new values you talk about…

Yannis: So, for instance, I love how some of us are still rooting for ownership (intellectual or physical) as a fundamental principle of our economy. Well, guess what, Millennials are teaching us that modern business models can be based on more fluid and open concepts such as access and open source. Think of a world where you don’t ‘own’ but you ‘share’ – as and when you need to. Who needs iTunes when you have Spotify?

Tom: Yes and everyone I know has started using Spotify all of a sudden. I read that they just got their millionth subscriber in the UK, around the same time that the billionth application was downloaded for the iPhone – which I guess is open development, if not true open source. But is all this generational change about technology?

Yannis: Well, hasn’t generational change always been about technology, through every stage of human evolution? The interesting thing about current technology is how Millennials are using it and the role it plays in their lives. For them, it’s the means to an end, not the end itself – it is the greatest facilitator of societal change at the moment. I see Millennials as the generation that will use technology to help us enter a new age of realisation … be that in the economy, consumerism, or through our social values.

The picture is borrowed, with thanks, from wearesuperfamous.com

(edit: The Futures Company definition of Millenials is those born from 1979 to 1992, not 1982 to 1992 as originally written – a typo, apologies)