Earlier today, Amy Beth Cupp Dragoo of ABCD Design published a post on her thoughts and experiences as an increasingly mindful consumer. In it she shares a wonderful definition of the “slow home” movement, which is tightly connected to the mindful consumption movement we’ve described in our book, studies, and on this site. In her words:
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Posts Tagged ‘Consumed’
New Consumer Sighting: The “Slow Home” Movement
The Start of Something New?
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.
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| 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 New Thrift
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.”
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| 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
It’s Not Just the Economy, Stupid: Why the recession isn’t the only thing influencing a consumer’s mindfulness
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.
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| 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
What’s the Opposite of Schadenfreude?
I moved away from San Francisco about a year before the Loma Prieta earthquake. Granted, we had the occasional jolt at our new home in Los Angeles, but nothing sufficiently destructive or alarming to get people to glance up from the latest issue of Variety much less gather in the streets. And while I was happy to have escaped the hassles of power disruptions and shattered glass, I was also a bit envious of my friends in the Bay Area who called with tales of what they had experienced and what others had endured. These feelings didn’t stem from some latent death wish or craving for excitement; rather, they were a twinge of longing for a shared experience powerful enough to create common cause and lifelong bonds. These friends had been through something, however peripherally, and, for a while at least, they were drawn closer to the strangers who populated the streets around them. Anyone who has been through an extended blackout knows how much friendlier a supermarket can become when everyone is filling their carts with bottled water and batteries and nonperishable food items. The shared hardship (however slight) gives people a sense of connection absent from regular store visits.
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| Tags: Ann O'Reilly, cause, common cause, communalism, Consumed, consumer consciousness, crisis, Euro RSCG, financial crisis, green, mindfulness, New Consumer, Recession, sacrifice, Sustainability, terrorism, World War II Post a Comment | 2 Comments | in Community, Consumed, Growing Up, New Consumer, Recession, Responsibility, Rightsizing, Sustainability, Uncategorized
The New Rich: What Success and Wealth Mean to Consumers in 2010
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.
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