Ged Carroll

Category: consumer behaviour | 消費者行為 | 소비자 행동

Consumer behaviour is central to my role as an account planner and about how I look at the world.

Being from an Irish household growing up in the North West of England, everything was alien. I felt that I was interloping observer who was eternally curious.

The same traits stand today, I just get paid for them. Consumer behaviour and its interactions with the environment and societal structures are fascinating to me.

The hive mind of Wikipedia defines it as

‘the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and all the activities associated with the purchase, use and disposal of goods and services.’

It is considered to consist of how the consumer’s emotions, attitudes and preferences affect buying behaviour. Consumer behaviour emerged in the 1940–1950s as a distinct sub-discipline of marketing, but has become an interdisciplinary social science that blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology, anthropology, ethnography, marketing and economics (especially behavioural economics or nudge theory as its often known).

I tend to store a mix of third party insights and links to research papers here. If you were to read one thing on this blog about consumer behaviour, I would recommend this post I wrote on generations. This points out different ways that consumer behaviour can be misattributed, missed or misinterpreted.

Often the devil is in the context, which goes back to the wide ranging nature of this blog hinted at by the ‘renaissance’ in renaissance chambara. Back then I knew that I needed to have wide interests but hadn’t worked on defining the ‘why’ of having spread such a wide net in terms of subject matter.

  • Fans + more news

    China is intensifying efforts to check the “chaotic” power of online celebrity fan clubs – Asian fans are something else, so this is not surprising. Asian Fans will spend a fortune on their favourite bands records. They will take out full page newspaper advertisements or billboards wishing their favourite artist happy birthday. In China, the party is always first, not pop stars. Fans will be clamped down on, unless they’re fans of Xi Jingping. More on what Asian fandom here.

    ‘Heavy’ versus ‘Light’ business philosophies in Chinese tech – Chinese Characteristics – really interesting idea to describe culture. Heavy is a business that relies on people to make to ‘make’ the product. TikTok would be heavy. Deepmind would be a light business. Heavy businesses tend to do soft innovation

    Chinese ecommerce site Shein hit with trademark disputes | Financial Times – “As long as they have the audience that they do, they’re going to determine that it’s worth their time and energy to move products as quickly as possible — even if some of those products violate intellectual property norms.” – business as usual in Chia then (paywall)

    Farewell, Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy – The New York Times – Uber journeys subsidised by VC money. I was reminded of the ludicrously low prices of dot.com era e-tailing sites

    Hong Kong star Karen Mok comes under fire in China for wearing Dolce & Gabbana in music video | South China Morning Post – The studio of Hong Kong pop singer Karen Mok has been forced to issue an apology after she prompted controversy on Chinese social media for wearing Dolce & Gabbana in her latest music video. The brand has been seen in some quarters as anti-Chinese following a 2018 controversy over an advertisement that showed an Asian woman trying to eat pizza and spaghetti with chopsticks. The adverts were criticised by mainland audiences for “publicly insulting China” and the crisis escalated after an online leak of screenshots from a private conversation showed Stefano Gabbana, the brand’s co-founder, making insulting remarks about the country. Gabbana and the brand’s co-founder Domenico Dolce eventually issued a public apology. – how fragile is the Chinese collective ego? This makes China look weak.

    The Telegram Billionaire and His Dark Empire – DER SPIEGEL – interesting if dramatic profile of Telegram messaging platform

    Japan’s Perceptions of Otaku: Then and Now – The Tokusatsu Network – interesting change in media and consumer attitudes to otaku. More people self identify as otaku, so the media has had to change. More Japan related content here.

    Retail Could Have A Bigger Comeback Than Expected. Here’s Why. – Robb Report – interesting US estimates – the National Retail Federation revised up its annual outlook: It predicted that retail sales will now grow between 10.5 percent and 13.5 percent to the range of $4.44 trillion to $4.56 trillion. That compares with $4.02 trillion in retail sales last year

    Brown Thomas and Arnotts could be changing owners – I wouldn’t be surprised if LVMH’s DFS business didn’t bid for Brown Thomas. Ireland is too small a market (even with tourists) for single brand boutiques

    Wikipedia’s Surprising Power in Shaping Science: A New MIT Shows How Wikipedia Shapes Scientific Research | Open Culture 

  • Web response times & things this week

    Web response times

    I have been working with colleagues on a point of view that is impacted by web response times. During the research aspect of this work I came across this video by Jakob Nielsen which explained web response times really well.

    Web response time resources

    Ralph Bakshi

    I might have mentioned once or twice how I like Ralph Bakshi’s fantasy films: The Lord of The Rings, Wizards and Fire and Ice. Bakshi used rotoscoping in ways that other directors have never managed to provide a unique animation experience that modern technology can’t beat.

    Forging Through the Darkness talks about Bakshi’s career

    Bakshi was making his DIY career back before computers or social platforms. Watching this film and seeing Bakshi’s punk-like attitude makes your Tik-Tok efforts seem lame by comparison. Secondly, a lot of the early opportunities that Bakshi got in animation are no longer available as the work would have been outsourced to India, China, Taiwan or Vietnam.

    The second film places Bakshi’s role in the animation in terms of the parallel track it takes to the New Hollywood movement that came to the fore in the early 1970s and finished with Heaven’s Gate.

    I was watching Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind with a friend over the weekend and saw some visual similarities to Bakshi’s Wizards. According to IMDB Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind was produced in 1984, some seven years after Bakshi’s Wizards.

    Japan population decline and relationship with the city

    Open culture have an article on the ghost towns of Japan. While Tokyo feels as busy as ever. There are small towns and rural areas that have become depopulated.

    I love the video made of a man who has turned a school building that no longer has children into a hostel, café and jam space for bands.

    While we’re on Japan. The 2002 documentary Tokyo Noise looks at how different Japanese artists experience, understand, interact and are inspired by Tokyo. It also covers a diverse range of issues including robotics and Shintoism.

    More Japan related content here.

    Are you scared yet, human?

    Panorama ran a documentary that feels like Adam Curtis doing a programme for the BBC’s Horizon series that explores the area of machine learning. You can argue about the content of the film, but it has provided a base level of understanding on the area to the general public. Politicians watching this show will feel as if they are industry experts as the closing credits roll; instead of viewing it as a starting point for wider reading. I think that this might set the tone in terms of regulation for many years to come.

    It misses AI winters and the fact that the technology is only ‘smart’ in very narrow areas. For instance, understanding content and autonomous driving both have their stubborn problems. It misses the fact that what we see now is based on thinking coming out of Canadian academia in the 1980s, that hasn’t been moved on much further.

    https://youtu.be/P1VKB0u86Qs

    As cryptocurrency has shown there are physical limits to how much computing power that can be thrown at a machine learning problem.

    Technology is a threat in the hands of authoritarian regimes. A classic example of this is the relationship that the Nazis had with IBM.

    Finally, I will leave you with a nicely done public safety video coming out of Denmark about the need for wearing helmets when riding a vehicle (or a horse).

  • Guo chao

    2008 and guo chao

    2008 was the best and worst of times for Chinese brands. The Beijing olympics was supposed to spur national pride. Included in this national pride was pride for Chinese brands – guo chao. Chinese athletics brand Li Ning took centre stage in the opening ceremony, screwing over Olympic official partner Adidas. For other olympics ambush marketing is severely restricted, but this was a national champion in China. Chinese pride usually means someone else’s humiliation, in this case Adidas.

    Right after the Olympics in September that year, a major food adulteration scandal became public. Over 300,000 babies were harmed when melamine was added by baby formula. The reason why this was done was to boost its ‘protein content’ in tests. The main brand in focus was Sanlu – a local milk powder brand. Subsequent tests found that adulterated powder had been sold around the world, by multiple Chinese brands.

    Chinese consumers hoovered up milk powder all over the world. Several countries and Hong Kong had to limit milk powder purchases, due to Chinese tourists and intermediaries cashing in on the demand for safe milk powder. During 2013, I was working behind the scenes at an agency for FrieslandCampina to try and combat the shortages in Hong Kong. The ban has been put in place indefinitely.

    Move forward a decade and guo chao is mainstream

    Everything is political, this is even more so in China. With the rise of Xi Jingping he sought to stop Chinese ‘irrational worship of the West‘. There are well loved domestic legacy brands in China, a prime example would be White Rabbit candy.

    white rabbit
    Guo chao brand ‘White Rabbit’ candy

    Along with this inflated Han nationalism has gone a pride in domestic brands. Huawei handsets are as expensive, if not more so than Samsung and Apple – which equated to a perception of similar quality. The fact that Chinese live most of their online lives inside WeChat dulls the difference in software. The operating system is no longer important. This is similar to the vision that Jim Clark had for the Netscape browser. If apps were on the web and ran through the browser, that would negate the stranglehold Microsoft Windows had on corporate and personal computing.

    Young adults in China now favour products with Chinese cultural designs and products made in China – guo chao. In one survey 75% of Chinese consumers surveyed state they like products that incorporate Guochao design elements. Design and colour choice is particularly important: doesn’t just mean “made in China” but embracing traditional Chinese elements and inciting national pride. Foreign brands have struggled to maintain market share. Guochao brands have built a good consumer reputation and market share by relying on the advantages of lower price, practical and competitive levels of quality. They have also suffered from the perception of being a copy or imitation of more expensive brands. Domestic brands have managed to use e-tailing to get over established foreign brand advantages in market penetration. More consumer behaviour related content here.

  • AgXeed + more news

    AgXeed

    Claas acquires share in Dutch robot manufacturer | Irish Farmers Journal – Claas has acquired a minority shareholding in Dutch start-up AgXeed B.V, with the aim of co-operating on the development and commercialisation of autonomous agricultural machines. AgXeed makes robot tracked tractors that look suspiciously like vehicles from the first Terminator movie. Automation like AgXeed is going to become more important in agriculture at labour moves to the cities and farming consolidates. You can see how unskilled factory work is also having to look at automation in the below piece from the South China Morning Post. AgXeed is the flip side of the coin to industrial robotics.

    As China’s working population falls, factories turn to machines to pick up the slack | South China Morning Post – makes a lot of sense for a brand like Midea who needs less precision than say a smartphone assembly line

    Beauty

    What’s driving the Chinese boom in cosmetics for children? | Vogue Business – In China, it’s more socially acceptable these days to show individual identity in looks. Parents born in the 1980s or 1990s are less likely to curb their daughters’ interest in beauty products and may even encourage it. The current boom is certainly one to watch: according to data from Kaola, in May 2020, sales in China of children’s cosmetics were up by more than 1,200 per cent year-on-year. Disney’s sales alone were up by 100 per cent over the same period. 

    In China, children’s cosmetics are defined as those for children aged 12 and under. On e-commerce platforms, a quick search for children’s cosmetics brings up dozens of brands and thousands of products, with prices ranging widely. Products are typically sold in sets, including colourful eye shadows, blush, lip gloss, nail polish, compact powder and makeup brushes

    Consumer behaviour

    What Gen Z Really Think And Why You Should Care – GWI – at least the author was thinking about life stages when they wrote this copy

    Energy

    Hydrogen plant planned for Cork but viable market yet to emerge 26 May 2021 | The Irish Farmers Journal – but if there isn’t hydrogen production, there won’t be hydrogen infrastructure and marketplace.

    Hong Kong

    EXCLUSIVE Hong Kong threatens Lai’s bankers with jail if they deal in his accounts | Reuters – “We can now see that any banking relationship you have centred on Hong Kong makes you vulnerable under the national security law – that is going to be a big wake-up call for the wealth management industry here, and their rich clients,“

    China’s Communist Party chips away at Hong Kong business houses | The Economist – Expropriations may violate local law. But laws can be changed, as the imposition of new security and electoral rules show. Such an outcome looks “all too believable”, says Mr Blennerhassett. The tycoons thought “they didn’t have to do anything as long as they didn’t question Beijing”, says Joseph Fan of Chinese University of Hong Kong. Now the Communist Party will not even settle for overt expressions of fealty. It appears intent on extracting value, too. – not terribly surprising. The hubris of Hong Kong business people is surprising, even to someone like me

    Legal

    British Business in China: Position Paper – British Chamber of Commerce in China | Beijing – Chinese data protection rules a key issue

    Luxury

    Can Gucci Sell High-End Watches To China? | Jing Daily – “Gucci’s high-priced watches are lacking legitimacy. Real watch collectors will not buy,” Müller concludes. In fact, the expansion into high-end watches may not help Gucci attract new clientele but will undoubtedly enhance the Italian maison’s prestige. As the luxury entry barrier lowers, the brand is required to expand in the high-end sphere to retain its exclusivity and appeal to local high net worth buyers

    Marketing

    The Test Screening That Almost Killed Fast Times at Ridgemont High | Slate – such a great interview, but would you have a cultural moment like that now; or would it be over like yesterday’s news or a TikTok meme?

    Media

    China’s Hottest Livestream Trend: Fraud – The episode was a disaster for Li. Her company had paid 200,000 yuan ($31,000) upfront just to secure a spot on the influencer’s show. It had also stocked over 4,000 boxes of shakes, anticipating a sales bonanza. But in the end, they hadn’t earned a single yuan. “Apart from the financial losses, we felt humiliated,” says Li. “All the other employees at the company were whispering that our team was totally fooled.” – ad fraud is universal but this one seems to be particularly shocking

    Technology

    iFixit tells the sad story of how Samsung “ruined” its upcycling program | Ars Technica – “Samsung, like every manufacturer, should set their old phones free. Open up their bootloaders. Let people use their cameras, sensors, antennas, and screens for all kinds of purposes, using whatever software people can dream up. The world needs fun, exciting, and money-saving ways to reuse older phones, not a second-rate tie-in to yet another branded internet-of-things ecosystem.“

    Web of no web

    Europe looks to the end of the mobile phone | EE News Europe – The aim is AR glasses that are wearable all day and weigh less than 60g with a 500mW power consumption. “We can achieve that this year with 1000nits for outdoor brightness, compared to 500nits that needs darkened lenses, and a 30 to 50 degree field of view (FoV) is enough,” he said. 

    “In the end there is a tradeoff in power consumption. The way you build the relay optics is where you lose the field of view. Increasing the field of view means the energy is relayed into the comb of the lenses so the limitation is on the capabilty of the waveguide to have a good colour uniformity across the field of view, and we are working with waveguide makers to get to 60 to 70deg. Today Hololens has 55 degree field of view for example but the military were asking for 85 degrees.” – more related content here.

    US-China tech war: China’s GPS rival BeiDou poised to support industry worth US$156 billion by 2025 | South China Morning Post 

  • PostScript + more things

    PostScript

    Adobe is dropping PostScript Type 1 font support. Be prepared for the change – huge move, given the amount of time that PostScript had been at the centre of design and print. There must be brands out there still using Type 1 fonts for standard print design work that haven’t changed style in 30 years beyond a logo tweak. Without PostScript fonts you couldn’t have had the laser printer or modern design software tools

    Business

    Amazon Exploding Hoverboard Case Could Forever Change Company – Bloomberg – Last month, a California appeals court ruled that Amazon can be held liable, even though the seller stored and shipped the device itself. The decision sent shockwaves through the e-commerce world. Though it will probably be appealed again, the ruling raises the possibility that Amazon might have to exert more control over the activity on its own website. “Courts are rejecting the internet exceptionalism idea when it comes to a company like Amazon,” Agnieszka McPeak, a Gonzaga University professor, told Bloomberg Law. – It could also have implications for companies like Shopify

    Sennheiser to spin out its consumer audio business | EE News Europe – AKG got sold off by the family, Sennheiser is selling off its iconic headphone business. This leaves only Beyerdynamic – Sennheiser sells auido business to hearing aid maker | EE Times Europe 

    South Korea’s Kakao to buy two U.S. storytelling apps for $950 million | Reuters

    Why SoftBank’s THG deal has more questions than answers | Financial Times – What exactly the Ingenuity business does is something of a riddle: chief executive Matthew Moulding described it as a “social media influencer platform” but it also handles the prosaic business of logistics and translations for third parties launching in new markets – I don’t get The Hut Group (THG), maybe they’re bad about telling their story?

    Luxury

    Why Victoria’s Secret Body Positivity Spin Won’t Work in China | Jing Daily – Victoria’s Secret’s has a long history of glamorous supermodel perfection, therefore this choice is seen as inauthentic for the Chinese consumer and has left many citizens bewildered. Global brands need a localized approach in China, but one that resonates convincingly with the company – on Victoria’s Secret trying be more inclusive and body positive

    Technology

    EVs Will Drive A Lithium Supply Crunch – IEEE Spectrum – not new news, but interesting that it is being highlighted by electrical engineers now just as many electric cars are coming to market. More lithium related content here

    Web of no web

    Northrop Breaks Into DARPA’s Blackjack « Breaking Defense – Defense industry news, analysis and commentary – software-defined Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) technology will offer military users an agile new signal from low Earth orbit (LEO) that is not dependent on existing satellite navigation systems – it could be interesting to see what new services can be built on this eventually