JWT’s AnxietyIndex is designed as a place to discuss how brands and consumers are responding to the global recession. With daily content updates, AnxietyIndex.com includes contributions from around JWT’s network, offering a truly global perspective.
As we discussed recently, too many choices can paralyze consumers, creating anxiety and deterring people from making any purchase at all. So Nokia’s new naming convention for its phones is a step in the right direction for a company with a multitude of products.
The phones are grouped into four series by function: N (most advanced), X (social networking), E (business) and C (basic functions). Within each series, phones are assigned numbers from 1 to 9 that signify the range of features available and, hence, cost. So buyers know from the start whether they’re looking at a highly sophisticated device (rated 9) or a stripped-down one (rated 1).
Nokia’s solution—paring down information to its essentials—allows consumers to more easily weigh price range, features and functionality and more quickly determine what they want. This takes some of the anxiety about making the right choice out of the equation, especially at a time when diligent consumers must do a great deal of work to wade through the fine print.
After a year spent surveying brand and consumer response to the recession through our AnxietyIndex.com, we have released our top 10 brand lessons from the Great Recession.
“The Recession Handbook: Brand Lessons from the Great Recession” emerged out of the quantitative and qualitative research that we conducted during the downturn. Over the past year, we have tracked nearly 400 brand responses to consumers’ recession-related anxiety in 27 markets. At the same time, we have quantitatively measured the levels and drivers of consumer anxiety in 13 markets.
Our hope is that this will serve as a primer for future downturns, beyond simply making the case for maintaining or increasing brand spend during a recession. We believe our recommendations will hold up in recessions to come, helping brands better address the challenges that come with economic upheaval.
Our 10 brand lessons from the Great Recession:
1. Find your value voice.
2. Remove the risk from price.
3. Don’t shy away from tackling anxiety head on.
4. Leverage public sentiment.
5. Give consumers more control.
6. Provide a real service for consumers.
7. Inspire rather than empathize with consumers.
8. Return to the core value of hope.
9. Re-imagine how your products are sold.
10. Use the recession to achieve a higher goal.
Walmart, Target, CVS and Walgreens are among the major retail chains paring brand-name products from their shelves in favor of private-label brands. This means fewer choices for consumers. Although conventional wisdom has it that people prefer more options, and a recent analysis in the Journal of Consumer Research seems to back this up, a piece in The New York Times challenges this theory. Reporter Alina Tugend questions whether choice overload can create anxiety and “paralyze people or push them into decisions that are against their own interest.”
Tugend describes a study by Columbia University business professor Sheena Iyengar. When a booth in a gourmet supermarket offering samples of jam included six varieties, 30 percent of shoppers who stopped by bought a jam; when the booth offered a much wider 24-flavor selection, only 3 percent actually purchased something. (But while 60 percent of customers stopped by when more flavors were on offer, the six-flavor selection attracted only 40 percent.)
In a post earlier this month we talked about how anxious consumers might respond to the global recall of Toyota vehicles and pondered how Toyota would take action. Toyota’s response to complaints had been too slow and had fallen extremely short of expectations, eventually leading to the recall of now global proportions. Unfortunately, the brand’s steps in addressing consumers on a public platform have been all too slow as well.
On the upside, Toyota.com has been serving as a hub for news and updates surrounding the recall, with a page wholly devoted to the matter. And today, CEO Akio Toyoda will be addressing Congress and issuing a formal apology to those affected by the faulty vehicles. Toyoda will declare his goal to restore confidence in his cars: “You have my personal commitment that Toyota will work vigorously and unceasingly to restore the trust of our customers.”
The brand also recently released its “Restore” spot (see below). The TV commercial leverages the history of Toyota with black and white images of old warehouses and models, ending on a grainy, colored shot of a smiling little girl jumping into a red car. The more striking aspect of the “Restore” ad is how transparently it addresses the recall, acknowledging that the company has made mistakes—from which it will learn, the voice-over assures. The commercial is an attempt at Maximum Disclosure, and an effort to win back those hesitant to trust the corporation again. Toyota tells the viewer, echoing what the CEO will tell Congress today, “We’re working to restore your faith in our company.” Considering the constant stream of negative details surfacing from the recall, renewed confidence in the brand could be a long way off. It will take more than nostalgic images and assertive words to convince customers at this point.
Promoting optimism through difficult times has been a recurring theme among marketers. Now New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority is doing the same—very literally—through a public art project. Beginning last fall, the MTA’s Authority Arts for Transit, one of the world’s largest public arts institutions, began adding the word “optimism” to the reverse of 14 million MetroCards.
The idea comes from graphic and conceptual artist Reed Seifer, whose Project Optimism originated in 1995 as part of his senior art thesis. His goal is “to communicate a sense of positive, forward-looking energy into the hands of those using the MetroCard through the simple use of the word.” Rolling out the project in the midst of a recession was a simple and timely idea for a city that’s been badly bruised by the downturn. Its residents are hurting—as of December, Manhattan had the nation’s highest level of unemployment—and Wall Street has become a symbol for all that was wrong with the economy before the bust. “Optimism” is a heartening message for a city that can certainly use a smile.
BMW’s recent shift away from its longtime tagline “The ultimate driving machine” to “Joy is BMW” looks like a savvy way for the luxury brand to remain relevant to post-recession consumers. In a release, BMW marketing VP Jack Pitney explained: “All of our efforts in engineering, design and technology are about one thing, which is creating moments of joy” and said the campaign focuses on “sharing those moments in an upbeat, humanized and refreshing fashion.” In other words, a cool car isn’t an end in itself. The visuals reinforce this, with ads showing more people (real BMW owners) than vehicles.
The North American campaign, emphasizing that “what you make people feel is just as important as what you make,” is at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum from one focused on performance and engineering. Which is about right, considering that “People now want to lead a richer life, rather than a life of riches,” as Madelyn Hochstein of DYG, a market research firm working with BMW, told The Wall Street Journal. Still, consumers may see touchy-feely as too much of a stretch for BMW; “Germans? Joy? Hahahaha,” remarked one commenter on the auto blog Jalopnik.
Extreme couponing was a common theme of last year’s recession news, with stories of cash-strapped consumers clipping their way to deep discounts. Now, the “find great deals” site Groupon is putting a tongue-in-cheek twist on that survivalist spirit with its Live Off Groupon promotion: One person will be chosen to “attempt to survive for one year with nothing but a laptop, cell phone and an unlimited supply of Groupons.” At stake is $100,000.
CNET calls it “one of the most ridiculous social-media promotions that any brand has attempted to pull off.” Admittedly, the contest isn’t a real option for the average family squeezed by the economy. But judging by the response on Groupon’s site, it has struck a chord with some very excited people, what seems to be a young, mobile crowd who have more time than money on their hands (funemployment, anyone?). Groupon’s offer, with its promise of a cross-country adventure and a big dose of humor, is appealing to them—and a clever way to get this demographic onto the site.
After a tumultuous year in which consumer faith in many institutions was shaken to the core, trust in business is rising year-over-year, notably in the U.S., according to the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer. In the U.S., trust in business jumped as much as 18 points, to 54 percent. But Edelman warns that this gain is tenuous—70 percent of consumers say business and financial companies will revert to old habits when the financial crisis is over.
Interestingly, while participation in social networks and platforms like Facebook and Twitter has zoomed, trust in peers has declined. According to Advertising Age, “The number of people who view their friends and peers as credible sources of information about a company dropped by almost half, from 45% to 25%, since 2008.”
“When you’re seeing so much noise, it’s very easy to dismiss a lot of it, and that’s a problem marketing messages have had for a while now,” 360i’s David Berkowitz told Ad Age, adding that “it can be overwhelming.”
Brands can play a clear role here by acting as a legitimate source of information, as long as it’s transparent and doesn’t come across as overly self-serving. This will also make the rise in trust less tenuous. For example, last year we cited a T-Mobile campaign that claimed “eight out of 10 people are unknowingly overpaying for their wireless service”; the wireless service provider directed Americans to a third-party Web site (BillShrink.com) that evaluates a person’s calling needs against every national wireless plan.
One of the Super Bowl’s standout commercials was from Denny’s, with its recession-friendly “panicky poultry,” as The Wall Street Journal put it. The spots featured chickens— from Mount Rushmore to the Oval Office to outer space—screaming their heads off. Why all the screaming? Denny’s was announcing its second annual free Grand Slam breakfast this Tuesday. Since it includes two eggs, a whole lot of egg-laying would be necessary.
The ads declared, “Great day to be an American. Bad day to be a chicken.” It’s nice to hear that it’s good to be an American, especially in uncertain times like these. Denny’s message touches recession-minded viewers by lightheartedly suggesting, at least you’re not a screaming chicken.
The marketer that might have been most expected to at least tacitly address the recession was CareerBuilder, but its spot avoided serious undertones, portraying an office that takes casual Fridays too far, with employees running around in underwear. The site missed an opportunity to connect with job hunters and inspire them.
It’s well-known that consumers have been less loyal to name brands, switching over to private label in an effort to pinch pennies. They’ve been cutting corners anyplace they can, especially on items they’re going to throw away—like garbage bags.
When Hefty first came out with its Odor Block bags, it touted the bags’ ability to block the stink of garbage. Now, Hefty’s commercials have a twist: A woman wants her husband to throw out a trash bag that’s barely full because it stinks; her husband says, “That’s wasting money” and “Wasting money stinks.” So not only does garbage stink, but wasting money does too—and Hefty Odor Block protects against both! And does it with “new lower prices.”
This is smart thinking, killing two birds with one stone by adding value in consumers’ minds.
It’s well-known that consumers have been less loyal to name brands, switching over to private label in an effort to pinch pennies. They’ve been cutting corners anyplace they can, especially on items they’re going to throw away—like garbage bags.
