St George’s Britain
Every marketing proposition must be grounded by its audience needs so understanding social trends is a vital component in planning successful brands and their collateral. The Office of National Statistics has just released its latest report on the state of British society and provides a reliable barometer of what Jupiter sees as an increasingly caring, value-centric population. We are experts at taking information from many sources and understanding what it means for our clients and their business.
* 58 per cent of men and 39 per cent of women aged 20 to 24 in England lived with their parents. This is significantly higher for both men and women than in 1991.
* There were almost three times as many further education students in the UK in 2004/05 as in 1970/71.
So parents are spending proportionately more time and money caring for their children and having to defer their own ambitions closer to retirement. This means ‘find your own space/identity’ at great value prices is an increasing motivator to purchase during this time. Also as the children finally leave the parental home a huge opportunity exists for brands targeting those in their late 20s and 50s.
* Now 24.2 million households in Great Britain, an increase of 30 per cent since 1971 but only an 8% increase in population. Nearly a quarter (24 per cent) of children in Great Britain were living in lone-parent families in 2006, more than three times the proportion in 1972.
* First time buyers in the UK faced average house prices 204 per cent higher than in 1995, compared with a 92 per cent rise in average incomes.
* The proportion of newly built homes with two bedrooms rose from 25 per cent to 42 per cent in England between 2001/02 and 2005/06.
So as communities and relationships fracture individuals will look for products and services that help them meet people with shared interests, provide social contact and support networks. Some consider this trend as reflecting a new British post-consumerist society where experience and human interaction during purchasing becomes just as valued as the actual material goods. A growing opportunity exists for both cheaper and smaller home improvement and furnishing products to reflect lower disposable incomes, more households and limited space in modern homes.
If your company want to discover new opportunities in changing markets call us.
Fascinating.
“…where experience and human interaction during purchasing becomes just as valued as the actual material goods.” By which you mean good, face-to-face Customer Service: we’ve always wanted that, though by and large it’s disappeared with, for example, telephone/internet/automated systems, where enquiries are steered into groups of answers taht don’t always meet the customer’s individual needs.
A shift in values to produce good CS would mean ‘valuing’ the service sector, and those in it, as having as an important a status as all other sectors. Unfortunately, that isn’t a particularly English trait, where an ‘us and them’ mentality does still exist.