Consumers buying habits are changing and Granny knows why?

Summary:
This Blog explores the thinking behind why consumers decide to buy something they don’t need, but they still want.
Why does Rob’s Granny know best and how this will effect the future of food.

Read on…

Here’s the dilemma, consumers are changing what they think they want, but they are still working out what they need.

Branding moves something from a need to a want.
For example, I need a drink because I am thirsty – but I want a cold beer.

This is the best bit: Great marketing makes me think that my ‘want’ is actually a ‘need’.

This is the kicker: consumers are re-thinking what they really need.

Reporters call this trading down, but it is far more complex than that. Why? Well, for a start it is really to do with how you associate yourself with a brand. If I really, really want it I will forget what you really need.

I needed a new mobile phone – but I bought an iPhone (want)!

So, how does this effect food purchasing?

We need to start to think about ‘trading-in’ and ‘trading-out’, instead of the predicable ‘trading-down’ that everyone is talking about. Trading-in and out are more fashion influenced rather simply a general trend. When it comes to premium food, which is taking a big hit at the moment, this is more to do with the trend for self-sufficiency and search for personal fulfillment by making something for yourself.

For instance, I can’t remember the last time I bought a ‘ready-meal’ (and this has nothing to do with the recession). We sell them in our farm shop, for crying out loud, which means they are free. And yet I still don’t buy them!

So,let’s consider more about the subtext to consumer behaviour, rather falling into the trap of following the herd.

At the moment retailers around the world are having sleepless nights. All because consumers are re-thinking what they really want (need). All the predictable thinking is that retailers should offer the same for less.
‘Let’s do more offers,’ they say, ‘Buy-one-get-one-free’, or ‘…two-free’. Absolute genius, that took a lot of thinking about! What next, ‘three-free’ or dare I say ‘just have it’!

Sadly, the next phase is even more predictable; suppliers/producers are asked to share the margin pain. This inevitably leads to a quality compromise = poor consumer experience = less brand loyalty = poor sales = product performance review = decision to offer better prices = more compromises = return to beginning… Aaarrrghh!

Consumers want more not less – some want more economical products, some want more interesting products, giving them less is a certain route to having less of a business.

Removing the ‘want’, leaves them with only what they really ‘need’. And that’s a really scary situation.

So, food industry, lets focus on creating really interesting products that create an intense desire (want) to buy and avoid this compromise hell all costs.

Finally, here’s my prediction for 2009:
Consumers where shell shocked this Autumn (Spring for the Southern hemisphere!) – as the financial melt-down hit, it left little time for many to avoid large discretionary spending such as holidays. Leaving only our immediate living costs to be altered to reduce household spending.

By July, in 2009, I think that we could see a revival in quality eating, funded by a dramatic reduction in big spending on cars, houses, clothes.
I think there will be a return to thinking about core believes of mental health and well being – However, not by consuming extravagant food products, but by eating real food made by real people. Our industry needs realign ourselves to this thinking. Good food does not have to be expensive (ask my 93 year old Grandmother, she’s always eat good food – either grown by herself or made/grown by someone she knows and trusts. When you lived through a World War you learn how to survive).

My closing thought is that I hope that the trading down that the multiples supermarkets are doing are packaged honestly – if it is made with lower meat content for instance, tell them and don’t pretend it is something special. The only people you are fooling are yourselves.

I look forward to your comments and New Year predictions…

Rob Ward
www.on-ward.co.uk

PS – Surprisingly, my Grandmother is not on email, but I can forward your thoughts to her – she can teach all of us a great deal about what food we will be eating in the future.