If you’re still talking about cost-of-living, you’re already behind the times. For consumers the topic has morphed into “questions-of-living”, says Rachel Ray, group strategy director at Dentsu.
“We’re seeing a shift,” says Ray. “People’s mindsets are changing around how they behave, how they consume and what they want out of life.”
It’s not just that they are spending less because things cost more, but that what they are spending on has changed.
“We see it with alcohol brands and alcohol consumption, in that people aren’t going out on the weekdays because they’re not in the office any more,” she points out. But changes in how people are living is impacting everything from health trends to where people are living to how many children they have.
For brands it’s less about how figuring out how much is in people’s grocery basket, and more about knowing how many grocery shops people are doing in a week because they work from home, or because there are less people in the house, or because people are making healthier choices.
It’s about understanding how consumers who can’t afford to spend on a holiday are buying more indulgent FMCG products instead.
“There are lots of different nuances at the moment. You have to really look at who is your audience, what are the changes going on in their lives, and does your product fit in with those changes, or do you need to make some shifts in order to keep them engaged and maintain sales,” says Ray.
The fact that household compositions are changing, from the rise in solo households to the prevalence of younger people staying longer in the family home for longer, are all having an impact on media planning.
Demographic changes such as the fact that people are having children later, and fewer of them, as well as the significant level of emigration among young people, are also impacting brands, as is the desire for work that offers a better work life balance.
“It’s about looking at the audience for your product, assessing if it is still the same audience as it was, and seeing what is new in their lives. It means moving beyond media soundbites such as ‘quiet quitting’ and really examining, by way of old school proper research, to figure how what is changing in relation to their values and priorities,” says Ray.
Lazy reliance on the “dusty old personas” of previous years risks seeing your brand quickly become irrelevant, she warns.
“Just because inflation is going down a bit does not mean suddenly there is going to be a drive for selling handsets, for example, because maybe people’s appetite for the latest iPhone or whatever has dropped away. Again, it’s about knowing your audience, knowing what they care about and not presuming that, because the economy goes up or down, your brand should be going up or down with it,” she cautions.
‘Brands should be looking to do more authentic things, with smaller numbers but with more meaningfulness’
For Winterlich, one of the biggest current trends stems from what he calls the paradox of connections: the fact that, in an increasingly “connected” world, the World Health Organisation has classified loneliness as a global epidemic. Ireland wins the unwanted accolade as loneliest nation in the EU.
That feels entirely counterintuitive, says Winterlich, given that crack and sociability is our national brand. “But we’re not really like that any more,” he points out.
It could be a result of the greater numbers living alone, up 7 per cent since 2016 according to the CSO, or the fact that young people live at home for longer. Less publicised issues such as the rise in home schooling, or the trend towards cocooning rather than socialising, may also be factors.
But another CSO finding, that Ireland is the most productive nation in the EU, may also be a factor. “I think we’re fatigued and burnt out with our busy lives,” he says.
All of this is going on while, at the same time, “this era of being hyper connected has started to leave people feeling really disconnected,” adds Winterlich.
Social media has in many ways become a contradiction in terms. “It’s just media. There’s very little social about it,” he explains.
While online communities spring up within this landscape, often around shared interests, “expecting tech to solve tech” seems counterintuitive too, points out Ray. So where do brands sit within this landscape?
Brands’ desire to be where people congregate, with extensive activations at events such as Electric Picnic or GAA matches, is understandable, given that they enable real life connections.
But there may in fact be greater value in being much more niche and targeted, says Winterlich, citing SuperValu’s long-standing partnership with the Tidy Towns initiative as a case in point. “It’s something that brings people together in a world where we’re not talking to our neighbours,” he says.
The Men’s Shed is another great initiative, he suggests, and one of a number of community focused initiatives well worthy of brand support.
“Brands should be looking to do more authentic things, with smaller numbers but with more meaningfulness,” he adds. Right now that includes anything that supports a “third space” – the place we go for sociability, fun or purpose, outside of home and work.
‘By partnering with media partners who know how to run an event you are not being thrown in at the deep end. It’s about starting small, connecting people and building communities'
Right now even the humble coffee shop is on the wane as a third space. In parts of the city, hatches are springing up encouraging consumers to buy coffee in the street and quickly move on, Winterlich points out.
In other instances coffee shops use apps that encourage people to collect their coffee without queuing, ushering them in and out with speed. It’s all of a piece with self-service checkouts and cashier-less banks.
The current trend is to make everything transactional rather than experiential, and it’s affecting everything from how our children play to how we stay well.
For example, we buy classes in a sport or hobby for our kids rather than encouraging them to engage in free play outside. We buy crystals and candles for a sense of wellbeing. “It always comes down to purchasing rather than experiencing,” says Ray.
The dearth of night clubs and late night bars, where adults, “particularly creative types, have hung out in since the beginning of time” is, she says, another example of the way in which we have yielded up our third spaces to our social detriment. In their stead has come the rise of saunas, which aren’t nearly as social, points out Winterlich.
A result of these societal shifts, both believe growing opportunities exist for brands to foster and support the kind of events that grow niche communities. One of the best ways of doing this is to partner with trusted media partners, says Winterlich, pointing to activities around The Irish Times’ Food Month initiative as a good example.
“There could be something that a media owner is interested in doing for their readers that you could partner with on a co production basis. And in doing so you’re not getting lost in the likes of an Electric Picnic, but you’re not having to do all the heavy lifting yourself.”
The fact that events such as the Dalkey Lobster Festival or Bloom always sell out is testament to people’s desire for both experiences and a sense of community. “By partnering with media partners who know how to run an event you are not being thrown in at the deep end,” says Ray. “It’s about starting small, connecting people and building communities.”
“And no niche is too niche,” adds Winterlich.
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