A New Consumerism

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As the global economy searches for rock bottom, 2009 is shaping up to be a year of serious consumer soul-searching.  Consumerism has been under the microscope over the past few months, and rightly so. A dangerous complacency within our consumer-centric society has lead us to spend more than we save and accept a life led paycheck to paycheck.

It’s hard being us.  We’ve been taught by marketers how to make decisions but are now forced to unlearn some of our most satisfying behaviors.

But this is nothing new.  My friend Paul Soldera found this except about the consumer’s dilemma from 1974:

Consumerism is essentially a societal problem, based on the efforts of the average person to come to terms with everyday companies in everyday transactions. Yet the growth in size of business organizations, together with the increasing complexity of their offerings, is such that it is becoming ever more difficult for the ordinary individual to participate in transactions with any real hope of equality and satisfaction.

This brings us to a conversation about Consumer Confidence.  Essentially it’s a measure of how good we are at overcoming indecision when we’re faced with a uncomfortable economic transaction.  Today, more product offerings, combined with recessionary pressures to curb spending, leaves Joe-Consumer in a precarious position as he agonizes over even the most mundane of trade-offs.

A new consumerism is being shaped by what it will take to regain our consumer confidence and by the questions we’re asking ourselves along our journey to restore it.  In last month’s Monocle Magazine, philosopher Alain de Botton offered his vision of this paradigm shift:

I believe 2009 will be the year when the question of how society should be arranged will cease to be an idle, abstract topic, dwelt upon by ivory-tower intellectuals after a few glasses of wine, and will instead enter the workday mainstream with a vengeance…All this because a consensus about the virtues of individualism, liberalism, and consumer capitalism is splintering beneath us.  At the heart of the debate lie questions about fulfillment.

Our generation is now faced with what feels like a our defining moment, when we make a marked change in our values and express this evolution through the choices we make.  Choices such as who should lead us?  What’s a need versus a want?  And ultimately what makes me happy?

Brands everywhere are on their toes because these broad, generation defining choices, trickle down to every brand decision we make and shape our portrait as consumers.  A prognostication from Simon Williams, CEO of Sterling Brands (and my best friend Nick’s dad), offers salient thoughts on what is defining the the new consumer ear we’re embarking upon:

- A quality of life rather than possessions in life
– Being community-driven and not so individually-driven
– New innovative thinking is likely to replace (failed) historical approaches
– A calmness and simplicity rather than stress and complexity
– Human health as opposed to corporate wealth

Whether consumer behavior evolves radically or methodically remains to be seen.  However, I’m confident that we’ll be able to look back and clearly point to brands that understood the fundamental shift taking place with the consumer psyche.  The hallmarks of this understanding will be uncompromising integrity, a clear sense of purpose and the boldness to challenge themselves and their consumers to achieve goals that lie slightly beyond their reach.

Barack Obama is our first brand success story from this era of new consumerism.  As he’s sworn-in today, January 20th 2009, it’s an appropiate time to reflect on how he got here and contemplate how the brands of tomorrow will successfully navigate what will be, in the words of de Botton, “a frightining and exhiliring time.”