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.
The recession has changed consumer sentiment toward low-cost, basic products, which are no longer seen as cheap and down-market but rather a proud social statement—a shift leveraged in an Effie-winning rebranding for Israel’s Tara Dairy (Tara), Tara’s products had been considered outdated for an age when many consumers opt for milk that’s fortified in various ways or low fat, and communication was aimed at older, conservative shoppers.
JWT Israel decided to tap into nostalgia for a “back to basics” message, but with a fun, humorous spin. To illustrate Tara’s tagline, “It all begins with excellent milk,” a series of commercials feature Israeli comedic icon Menashe Noy cast as a typical 1960s dairy farmer on a kibbutz. Tending to his cows in a rolling green meadow, Menashe Noy tells stories about his favorite cow in an old-fashioned and annoying but funny way, with many irrelevant details, jumping from one loosely related anecdote to another. He conjures up a simpler time for Israeli viewers.
The campaign managed to both create an aura of nostalgic simplicity around the brand and position Tara as a youthful, energetic brand.
The general sensation that politicians are disconnected from reality gets even more pronounced during a downturn, often contributing to anxiety. Several years ago an infamous incident showed Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s disconnect from everyday life: During a TV debate with citizens, a man asked him how much a coffee costs, and Zapatero answered “80 cents,” 40 cents under the actual price. “Zapateros’ coffee” became a classic media buzzword, indicating how out of touch politicians are with their countrymen.
Earlier this year, as Spain’s consumers continued to grapple with high unemployment and other effects of the downturn, JWT created an 80 cent “ZP’s coffee” promotion for Dunkin’ Coffee. Since this low price had existed only in the optimistic mind of the prime minister (nicknamed ZP), we made it real, demonstrating that a “better world” can exist! With only point-of-sale marketing—copy read “This month, have a coffee with a different frame of mind”—the “ZP coffee” got significant media coverage. This simple way of leveraging a catchphrase put a smile on people’s faces and transmitted the brand’s connection with its customers’ needs.
With recession forecast to hit Latin America sometime in 2010, Mexico registered among the most anxious of the 16 countries JWT has studied for our AnxietyIndex. A survey of 296 Mexican adults aged 18-59, conducted in January, found that 78 percent report being anxious.
The primary drivers of anxiety are the economic situation, the escalation of violence and crime, and the stagnant job market. Mexicans’ frustration and pessimism are exacerbated by the widespread belief that the political class is detached from the country’s reality, that the current government is one of the most corrupt and that people are being treated unjustly. Feeling they live in permanent instability, people are pessimistic about the future, especially when they think about the job market their children will one day face, the cost of their children’s education and having enough money for a comfortable old age.
For Mexican brands, there are opportunities in helping to restore a sense of control for consumers. Ford champions this idea of empowerment in a Focus commercial that dramatizes a test drive as a getaway chase in a fantasy urban landscape. The driver weaves around pop-up cutouts of roadside obstacles—dog walkers, construction workers, school children crossing the street, etc.—while drag-racing a paper-cutout driver, accompanied by the 1980s Karate Kid anthem “You’re the Best Around.” The spot positions the Focus as an escape from an increasingly violent and challenging environment and as a means of taking control.
To download the full Mexico AnxietyIndex report from the Trends and Research page, click here.
Ever since the words “credit crunch” and “recession” have filled the papers, companies have been reacting with money-off offers here and price reductions there. And with every brand claiming to be cheaper than the next, it’s become easy to block out the numbers. So it’s interesting to see Confused.com’s response.
A price comparison website for insurance policies, Confused.com could easily have gone down the straight money-saving route. Instead, it seems to be purposely avoiding this by representing potential savings with the items you might have purchased had you saved with Confused.com. In this ad, a woman and her husband watch a ghostly pair of jeans, the pair she “would have bought with the money I could have saved on the car insurance if I had gone to Confused.com.” It’s a clever way of making the savings tangible. And a clever way of standing out from the crowd in a post-recession battleground that remains number-fueled.
Here in Spain the downturn has not faded, and there’s a great deal of concern about how to improve the situation. So in February a group of big companies, under the name Fundación Confianza (Trust Foundation), launched a Web platform:estosololoarreglamosentretodos.org (meaning something like “we can only fix it all together”). A long clip of testimonials from famous figures—everyone from the chef Ferrán Adriá to TV stars and sport personalities—attempts to transmit optimism and motivation. The site also showcases people who have done well during the downturn, starting profitable projects. Visitors are invited to share their own experience about how to succeed.
While a big media spend was supporting the operation, and a Facebook page had close to 75,000 followers, few people uploaded anything to the site. Meanwhile, parodies popped up, like “itshouldbefixedbytheoneswhobrokeit.org,” which collected upward of 20,000 fans. Some criticized the campaign’s naive optimism or charged that bankers were hiding behind it. After a few weeks, the campaign was suspended on two main TV channels when the right-wing opposition party denounced it as a subtle way to make people optimistic about the current administration. (Spanish public TV can run only public service announcements.)
Why didn’t a positive initiative like this become popular in Spain? One likely reason is that in the Web 2.0 era, it’s difficult to create a collective movement based on a corporate initiative and advertising spending, and it seems that people prefer to get through this downturn their own way. But the message reached a vast audience, and it leaves a good seed.
In the good ole’ days—about three years ago—it seemed brands racked up only laudatory shout-outs in music lyrics. You remember, back when we were all riding in Escalades, passing the Courvoisier, shaking it like a Polaroid picture. (In 2008 Wired looked at how some brands actually courted musicians.) Now, folk musician Loudon Wainwright III is singling out a handful of brand names for some not so flattering attention. His latest album, Ten Songs for the New Depression, is a compendium about the new hard times, channeling the spirit of the Great Depression with ukulele strains and cutting lyrics.
One that captures consumer helplessness: “Times is tough/Times is hard/take a pair of scissors to your credit card/Circuit City just said, ‘So long!’/All I can do is sing this song.” Wainwright takes aside GMC and Volvo for a slap in the riff “Cash for Clunkers,” while “The Krugman Blues” is a paean to The New York Times columnist, if not the sour commentary he’s been doling out. How can brands escape this downturn without becoming synonymous with the “New Depression”? Survival, for starters. But beyond that, Wainwright’s self-pity suggests consumers need a comforting tone. A good banjo tune helps too.
In the past 10 months, the Johannesburg Roads Agency has received some 42,500 complaints of potholes across the city. With government in South Africa neglecting basic services such as road repair, people are agitated and anxious—in a difficult economic climate, the last thing motorists want is the expense of repairing or buying new tires and rims.
Brands have stepped in, taking advantage of the opportunities for CSR initiatives. Kentucky Fried Chicken has donated R200,000 (about $27,000) to help fill some of the potholes in and around Johannesburg. It seems like an awfully small amount, although KFC is positioning the move as part of a “challenge to other companies to help in any way they can.”
Meanwhile the Empowerment Gateway Group, a consulting practice, started an Adopt-a-Pothole project; it is now handing off custodianship and considering bids from businesses looking for a CSR cause. The program is positioned as one that helps alleviate unemployment along with improving roads.
One of the more successful such initiatives is from OUTsurance, an insurance company that has teamed with police to place branded pointsmen (traffic control people) at busy intersections to help alleviate congestion. It’s a good example of how brands can strengthen their image by helping to alleviate anxiety.
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.
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.
In a full-page New York Times ad that ran earlier this week, the New York branch of steakhouse chain Smith & Wollensky declared that if it can’t get its hands on customers’ cash, it will take their stock options. Its tongue-in-cheek “Steak for Stock” special calls for steak lovers to swap NYSE and NASDAQ certificates for equally acronymic USDA dry-aged steaks.
While Wall Street bonuses have traditionally funded blow-out meals at such restaurants, this year many bankers are getting company shares rather than cash. The ad pokes fun at the fact that Smith & Wollensky’s core clientele is no longer knee-deep in bonus money, saying that “the effects on the local economy could be catastrophic, leaving large tracts of land in the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard undeveloped.” Actual “Steak for Stock” trades are unlikely, as the registered owner of the stock must present the original certificate. But the ad insists customers take the promotion to heart, adding that the restaurant will “even accept GM.”
It’s an over-the-top approach reminiscent of the “Expense-a-Steak” promotion from Midtown steakhouse Maloney & Porcelli, which provided a site that generated fake receipts so that corporate clients could return to the upscale dining venue. This tactic boldly connects not only with bankers coming to terms with a new financial equation but also with other anxious New Yorkers, who can use a good laugh when thinking about the crisis.
The general sensation that politicians are disconnected from reality gets even more pronounced during a downturn, often contributing to anxiety. Several years ago an infamous incident showed Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s disconnect from everyday life: During a TV debate with citizens, a man asked him how much a coffee costs, and Zapatero answered “80 cents,” 40 cents under the actual price. “Zapateros’ coffee” became a classic media buzzword, indicating how out of touch politicians are with their countrymen.
Jeans Savings Regret..
