Fifty-five percent of Prosumer respondents to Euro RSCG’s Future of the Corporate Brand study said they prefer to do business with companies and brands that have a distinct personality. More than nine in ten agreed that, to be successful, corporations of the future will need to show a more “human” face (meaning they must care about people and take a more active role in community and social causes).
Count me among them.
Click to read more…
| Tags: accountability, Andrew Benett, Ann O'Reilly, Arnold, Bob The Fish, brand engagement, brand pesonality, Bud Groover, Cavas Gobhai, consumption, CSR, culture, customer service, discounts, Euro RSCG, freebies, Future of the Corporate Brand, Greg Welch, holiday shopping, humanized brand, Johnnie Boden, Mark Twain, Mini Boden, New Consumer, Recession, reputation, Retail, values 
Post a Comment | 3 Comments | in Branding, Corporate/Brand Leadership, Marketing, New Consumer, Prosumers, Purposeful Pleasure, Recession, Shopping, Uncategorized, Value, Values
The following is excerpted from Consumed: Rethinking Business in the Era of Mindful Spending (Palgrave Macmillan, July 2010), written by Andrew Benett and Ann O’Reilly and drawing on findings from the Euro RSCG New Consumer study:
The long, wearisome decades of hyperconsumption shaped not just the way we think and feel but the very language we use. It is now customary to refer to human beings as consumers or even as brands. And an entire lexicon has been summoned into existence just to give verbal shape to our profligate excesses: big-box store, Black Friday (and now Cyber Monday), bling, door-buster, McMansion, self-storage, shopaholic, supersized, warehouse club.
Click to read more…
| Tags: Andrew Benett, Ann O'Reilly, Arnold, Christian McMahan, conscious consumption, Consumed, consumer consciousness, consumers, Euro RSCG, excess, green, Heineken, mindful consumption, mindfulness, New Consumer, Retail, Sustainability, thrift, values, vocabulary Post a Comment | in Branding, Consumed, Consumerism, Corporate/Brand Leadership, New Consumer, Responsibility, Rightsizing, Shopping, Sustainability, Uncategorized, Value, Values
The following is excerpted from Consumed: Rethinking Business in the Era of Mindful Spending (Palgrave Macmillan, July 2010), written by Andrew Benett and Ann O’Reilly and drawing on findings from the Euro RSCG New Consumer study:
At the heart of rightsizing, reusing, and recycling lies a concern for thrift. It is an old virtue, of course, stretching back through history. The American strain of it got going with Benjamin Franklin’s aphoristic proselytizing. In the 1950s, millions laughed at entertainer Jack Benny when he flaunted his cheapskate ways. In England, Queen Elizabeth is a famously frugal soul, in spite of being one of the wealthiest women on the planet. She wears her dresses repeatedly and stores cornflakes in Tupperware. In 2009, a Daily Telegraph columnist was aghast at the revelation that “Her Majesty eats breakfast off a tatty tray bearing mismatched china that would shame a Blackpool B&B. It’s all rather admirable, but I wonder if she’s overdoing the thrift.”
Click to read more…
| Tags: Andrew Benett, Ann O'Reilly, Arnold, conscious consumption, Consumed, consumption, Euro RSCG, excess, financial crisis, frugality, Havas, mindful consumption, New Consumer, Recession, recycling, saving, simplicity movement, Sustainability, thrift, values, waste, wealth Post a Comment | 3 Comments | in Consumed, Consumerism, Growing Up, New Consumer, Recession, Responsibility, Rightsizing, Shopping, Uncategorized
There are those who say the trend toward “mindful consumption”—people thinking more carefully about what and why they buy—will sputter out just as soon as the economy fully rebounds. They’re wrong, and for a number of reasons. As appealing as it may be for marketers to anticipate a return to hyperconsumerism and mindless excess, there are simply too many factors making that not just unlikely but virtually impossible.
Click to read more…
| Tags: accountability, Adweek, aging, Andrew Benett, Ann O'Reilly, Arnold, conscious consumption, Consumed, consumption, economics, Euro RSCG, Havas, mindful consumption, New Consumer, Recession, Sustainability, values, Walmart Post a Comment | 5 Comments | in Consumed, Consumerism, Eco-Consciousness, Growing Up, New Consumer, Purposeful Pleasure, Recession, Responsibility, Rightsizing, Shopping, Sustainability, Uncategorized
All year long Forbes comes out with lists of the world’s richest people—the youngest billionaires, the most eligible billionaires, the richest women, the wealthiest families on each continent. People find it fascinating to track the waning and waxing of personal wealth, watching as perennial front-runners Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are eclipsed by a Mexican telecom titan and chased by various silver-spoon princes of Asia and the Middle East. To be among the world’s wealthiest is the stuff of many a daydream.
Click to read more…
The following is excerpted from Consumed: Rethinking Business in the Era of Mindful Spending (Palgrave Macmillan, July 2010), written by Andrew Benett and Ann O’Reilly and drawing on findings from the Euro RSCG New Consumer study:
“Eliminate physical clutter. More importantly, eliminate spiritual clutter.” —Minimalist advocate D. H. Mondfleur
There are said to be four paths to Nirvana but only two lead to rightsizing: (1) shop less and (2) haul your excess out to the curb. Respondents to the Euro RSCG New Consumer survey are doing both: Just less than half the U.S. sample and 58 percent of U.S. Prosumers agreed: “I’m getting a sense of satisfaction from reducing my purchases during the economic downturn,” and nearly six in ten Americans (and seven in ten Prosumers) said that, in recent years, they have thrown out (or thought about throwing out) lots of stuff in order to declutter their lives and homes. A decluttering movement is rapidly gathering momentum, sweeping all before it.
Click to read more…
| Tags: Andrew Benett, Ann O'Reilly, Arnold, Breakthrough Marketing Plans, clutter, Consumed: Rethinking Business in the Era of Mindful Spending, decluttering, Euro RSCG, excess, Gail Blanke, Havas, lifestyle coach, overconsumption, simplicity, simplification, stuff, Tim Calkins, waste Post a Comment | 2 Comments | in Consumed, Consumerism, Growing Up, New Consumer, Rightsizing, Shopping, Sustainability, Uncategorized, Values
The following is excerpted from Consumed: Rethinking Business in the Era of Mindful Spending (Palgrave Macmillan, July 2010), written by Andrew Benett and Ann O’Reilly and based on the Euro RSCG New Consumer study:
Euro RSCG research shows that the conditions that permitted hyperconsumerism to flourish are disappearing. “I don’t think we are ever going back to the way it was before,” Jim Fielding told us in a telephone interview. The president of Disney Stores Worldwide sees impulse buying giving way to a new thoughtfulness. Customers come into his stores having researched products and prices online. “A few years ago, shopping was recreational,” he says. “Now it’s planned.”
Click to read more…
Excerpted from Consumed: Rethinking Business in the Era of Mindful Spending (Palgrave Macmillan, July 2010)
Along with “Bridezilla,” lavish weddings have gotten a bad rap lately—further evidence that the rightsizing mentality is taking hold. “When Wedding Is a Big Show, Marriage Often Doesn’t Last,” one newspaper grimly warns us. But perhaps the divorce rate is about to fall: Sifting for trends among the more than two million weddings in the United States in 2009, wedding planners noted a growing preference for simplicity and intimacy—smaller ceremonies with fewer guests, choosing off-peak times (mornings, afternoons, Fridays and Sundays, with October “the new June”). As couples found new ways to economize, spending slumped 10 percent compared with 2008, which itself had seen a decline of around 20 to 30 percent from the year prior. Bridal registries have shown a definite shift toward simplification, the casual, and the practical.
Click to read more…
| Tags: Andrew Benett, Ann O'Reilly, Arnold, bubbles, conscious consumption, consumer consciousness, consumption, Euro RSCG, excess, Havas, homemade, mindful consumption, New Consumer, simplicity movement, simplification, Sustainability, weddings Post a Comment | 3 Comments | in Consumerism, Eco-Consciousness, Growing Up, New Consumer, Purposeful Pleasure, Responsibility, Rightsizing, Sustainability
