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.

  • Hackgate & UK audience

    Much has been made this week on the Murdoch’s appearing at a parliamentary inquiry into hackgate: a scandal involving phone hacking and other nefarious practices by the media in order to get stories. What is less getting less to no real discussion is what hackgate says about the UK audience. News International is a business, if the content didn’t sell, they wouldn’t create more of it.

    Content that would formerly only air in blackmail cases would appear on the Sunday breakfast table and consumers lapped up the lives of public figures. I am no fan of News Corporation’s media outlets but I feel very uncomfortable about the four-minute hate that is going on at the moment. Lots of people are enjoying the details about the how, but nobody seems to be asking about the why of the whole episode.

    Like the war on drugs, the problem isn’t only one of supply, but one of latent and actual demand that will be supplied one way or the other. Whilst there are middle-class people who believe that cocaine is an ideal final course at a dinner party you will have drug cartels. Whilst you have consumers who have a prurient interest in other people’s lives there will be publications that are willing to push the envelope in news-gathering.

    Why aren’t questions being asked about the thirst of UK consumers for the kind of stories that hackgate revealed. An examination of society as well as media ethics is called for.

    Why did it take the murder of a child (Milly Dowling) to suddenly make the media gathering behaviour move from naughty to wrong in the general public’s eyes? More media related commentary can be found here.

    More discussions of note about the case

    Monocolumn – High farce lets Murdoch off the hook [Monocle]

    RPT-COLUMN-It pays to be Murdoch. Just ask US gov’t: DCJohnston | Reuters

    Hunt asks regulators to reconsider News Corp/Sky deal – Media news – Media Week

    Murdoch Closing Tabloid Linked to British Hacking – NYTimes.com

    James Murdoch accused of lying

    UK deputy PM: Chance to clean up press-gov’t ties

  • London through a tourist’s eyes

    My friend Tomoko was in London the other week and it was interesting seeing what excited her about London, as Tomoko’s London is very different from my own.

    Firstly ‘knowing London’ means knowing central and Northwest London rather than central and East London. Shoreditch, Clerkenwell and Soho aren’t attractive; St Johns Wood and Mayfair are – big learning curve for me here, as I have assiduously avoided anything west of Soho during my 13 or so years in London.

    Whilst we may think that London has everything to offer with contemporary clubs like Cargo and the East Village, it was Whisky Mist that Tomoko went to. With a clientele drawn from or aspiring to be in a P.G. Wodehouse adaption styled by Jack Wills; that you would only find me in under duress, but was what she wanted to do. Tradition and the class system trappings is a huge selling point for the UK – in terms of experience it beats Cool Britannia of modern UK life into a cocked hat. We had a drink and a catch-up late one evening in the Rockcliff Bar in The Trafalgar Hotel which I felt was a reasonable compromise.

    One thing that she was surprised at was how early in general London closes its bars and restaurants on a week-day; its not as swinging as the reputation would have others believe and certainly not up to the standard of Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai or Singapore.

    Fifteen or twenty years ago, the UK had a reputation as the worst cooks in Europe. Tomoko’s trip was as much about being a gastronomic journey. She learned how to prepare a proper English afternoon tea (the rest of the world thinks that we don’t go to Pret-a-Manger and Starbucks apparently) and we had a taster menu lunch at Gordon Ramsay’s Maze restaurant (more on this in another post).

    There was an interesting take on shopping:

    • Mitsukoshi for convenience – not having to fight your way through Mayfair, along Regent Street or up Oxford Street to Selfridges
    • Jermyn Street for male family presents; Covent Garden antiques market for souvenirs and bringing presnts to female family presents
    • Old and New Bond Street were of interest for window shopping

    Which makes me think that a lot of central London retail space is looking seriously over-priced and that high footfall – long the measure of a desirable retail space can be as lethal for a shop as a branch of the Sue Ryder charity opening up next door.

    All of this made think about what what my current home city means to people around the world. I have met people within my industry where having worked in London agency life carried a lot of kudos, the popularity of modern dance music elsewhere in the world was spearheaded by the middle-aged UK DJs who were involved in the late 80s acid house scene. Modern design with a twist of irreverence from James Dyson and Paul Smith to Jonathan Ives at Apple are the product of a forward-looking country. But that doesn’t seem to have translated into a brand identity for London that is less Daniel Craig and more David Niven.

    Asian countries like Korea, Japan and China have managed to forge identities that are modern, yet are complementary to the centuries of culture and history that they have. On the other had, Egypt (at least as a tourist destination) is all about the ancient Egyptian society that flourished and declined 2,000 years ago. I would prefer to see London being able to balance a modern identity with a nod to the history rather than be trapped by it. Perhaps the best place to start would be through the creative destruction of the Central London built environment.

  • Big content + more news

    Big content

    “Big Content” Is Strangling American Innovation – Harvard Business Review – ‘Big content’ is an interesting turn of phrase. It has a lot of negative connatations like ‘big tobacco’, ‘big food’ or ‘big pharma’. While ‘big content’ doesn’t kill people with its actions, it does capture the malignancy on society and on the economy. But big content is also soft power. The article points out how badly big content is in adjusting with technological, societal, social and economic change. Part of the problem seems to have been the ability of big content to use lobbying as a crutch. Secondly, big content does a lot of work oppressing its creators ability to earn and looking after the needs of authoritarian regimes like China – Innovation has emerged as a key means by which the US can pull itself out of this lackluster economy. In the State of the Union, President Obama referred to China and India as new threats to America’s position as the world’s leading innovator. But the threats are not just external. One of the greatest threats to the US’s ability to innovate lies within: specifically, with the music and movie business. These Big Content businesses are attempting to protect themselves from change so aggressively that they risk damaging America’s position as a world leader in innovation. Many in the high technology industry have known this for a long time. Despite making their living relying on it, the Big Content players do not understand technology, and never have. Rather than see it as an opportunity to reach new audiences, technology has always been a threat to them. Example after example abounds of this attitude; whether it was the VCR which was “to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone” as famed movie industry lobbyist Jack Valenti put it at a congressional hearing, or MP3 technology, which they tried to sue out of existence. In fact, it’s possible to go back as far as the gramophone and see the content industries rail against new technology. The reason why? Every shift in technology is difficult for them. Just as they work out how to make money using one technology, it changes.

    Consumer behaviour

    Television Ownership Drops in U.S., Nielsen Reports – NYTimes.com

    Why the Rich Envy the Super-Rich – WSJ – interesting keeping up with the Jones’es phenomena going on

    Gallup: Chinese People See Themselves Struggling – WSJ – I think that the points made about Gallup’s sample size and methodology are interesting

    Schumpeter: The status seekers | The Economist – status moving from goods to virtue-related experiences in developed world

    Culture

    Night Flight (TV series) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – I found Night Flight eerily prescient of a YouTube play list

    Finance

    Domestic disaster, overseas losses put pressure on Nomura’s profits | The Japan Times Online

    Innovation

    New Iron-based Cathode Material Extends Life of Li-ion Batteries — Tech-On!

    Asahi Glass to Roll ‘World’s Thinnest’ Glass Substrate for Touch Sensors — Tech-On!

    Japan

    Convenience store Lawson creates portable convenience store to reach earthquake stricken customers – the convenience store in Japan plays as big a part in people’s retail lives as Tesco or Sainsburys does in the UK. Retailer Lawson has managed to cram a convenience store in a small van to reach quake-stricken areas.

    Groklaw – Prior Art, Anyone? Anyone? Barnes & Noble? Google? Motorola? – Updated – Microsoft and Paul Allen patents in trouble?

    Media

    The BBC Is Struggling to Tighten Its Belt – NYTimes.com

    Online

    Google’s China market share: declining | FT.com – its not just Baidu who is gaining

    Retailing

    Discounters boom in UK: News from Warc.com – makes sense as a way of ducking inflation

    Analysis: Why Did Walmart Buy A Social Media Firm? – I spoke to Arun as he was writing this piece whilst grabbing a hot dog with my old friend David Ingle. I see this as Walmart reclaiming their heritage in innovation: in supply chain management – they drove the move to ‘Made in China’, new retail formats – the big box store that nuked independent retailers and data-mining personified in the ‘beer and nappies’ urban myth

    Security

    Sony suffers another major security breach | BGR

    Wireless

    FT.com / Technology – Instant messaging forecast to hit texting – not terribly surprising however Disco may change this

  • Nintendo + more news

    Nintendo

    Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata Promotes Game Consoles Over Smartphones – NYTimes.com – The president of Nintendo told video game developers Wednesday that smartphones were driving a trend toward lower quality, and economically unsustainable, video games. – So much to unpack in this Nintendo speech. Mobile gaming is about more accessible gaming, filling in shorter slots of time like a commute or a cigarette break at work. This is very different to the kind of games that Nintendo makes now. Secondly, smartphones might be an outlet for very old Nintendo games.

    Nice Nintendo tie-in

    What this speech conceals is how Nintendo can change our idea of what a games console actually is. This is where Nintendo can innovation since it can’t ‘out perform’ gaming PC rigs or Sony and Microsoft games consoles. Lastly, Nintendo can create family moments. Something that isn’t possible with mobile gaming or Xbox and PlayStation libraries.

    Consumer behaviour

    Competition for Brides Fuels High China Savings – China Real Time Report – WSJ – If you reduce your savings, you doom your son. – One has to remember that in China families have an ‘ancestral home town’ and will contribute to the upkeep of clan halls. The demise of a family has an even bigger significance with the weight of those ancestors on them. Not even the cultural revolution could completely wipe that out

    Economics

    Say Goodbye To The China Price : China Law Blog – expect things to get more expensive

    Survey Shows China is Number One…in Riskiness – WSJ – American managers think that China is due a hard economic landing

    First Asia Harris Poll Released Comparing Attitudes in China, Hong Kong, India, Sinapore & the US – PRNewswire – interesting perspectives in this research. India has a hill to climb with few people aside from Indians believing in its future economic leadership position despite its demographic dividend

    Japan

    Monocolumn – Here come the gals [Monocle] – Monocle on Tokyo Girls Collection. What they miss out is also that TGC is an entertainment spectacle and compensates for the very different retail distribution model in Japan. This year was interesting because of the involvement of YouTube to stream the event

    EUROPA – Neelie Kroes Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda Addressing the orphan works challenge IFRRO launch of ARROW+ – Europe likely to get competitive advantage by innovating on copyright law

    Luxury

    Wanted: Chinese Consumers for Luxury Survey – Scene Asia – WSJ – “The stereotype of [Chinese] people wearing the big Dolce & Gabbana or Versace logo — that isn’t true anymore,” said Mr. Atsmon. “It’s not that the consumers are changing. It’s that the new consumers are less concerned about being flashy.” – really interesting stuff about how they enticed survey respondents

    China’s High Luxury Tax Under Fire – Jing Daily – this would likely adversely affect the desirability of foreign tourism to Chinese consumers

    Retailing

    JNKsystem.com　 : HUF San Francisco Closes – I remember six years ago paying a pilgrimage to HUF and the Timbuk2 shop on Hayes as I spent an unplanned weekend (due to work) in San Francisco. Interesting that he is moving away from retail and distribution whereas the likes of Stüssy, Norse Projects and BAPE are vertically integrated

    Tokyo Girls Collection x YouTube for live-steam fashion – Tokyo Girls Collection partners with YouTube for its real-world | real-time | e-commerce | m-commerce fashion show

    Telecoms

    Hong Kong Company Moves Swiftly on Ultrafast Broadband – NYTimes.com – even at 60-odd USD PCCW’s gigabit home broadband, let alone Hong Kong Broadband Network’s 24.99 embarrasses the UK

  • Ron Conway + more news

    Ron Conway

    Ron Conway’s Confidential Investment “Megatrend” — “O2O Commerce” – for those of you who don’t know Ron Conway is a Silicon Valley angel investor who is hyper-connected and said to have the golden touch. Online to offline (O2O) commerce has been big in Asia where QRcodes provided the connective tissue between apps and the real world. QRcodes have struggled with adoption in the west, yet have been embraced in countries where mobile payments and smartphones co-exist for useful services. Ron Conway has been a feature of Silicon Valley since the early 1970s when he worked at National Semiconductor. He became a Silicon Valley legend by investing early on in companies such as Marimba, Google and Reddit. Marimba was a woman led start up that developed and marketed software change and configuration management solutions, which was huge at the time for corporates looking to have all of their computers running the most secure version of a software application or update network configurations. Ron Conway was one of the prime movers behind Angelgate; which discussed how to depress the values of investable startups in the face of competition from other investors. Due to his standing in Silicon Valley during the mid-1990s through to the 2010s, if Ron Conway offered a deal there would be strong expectations that you take it. Looking from afar, this felt more like The Sopranos than Sandhill Road.

    Beauty

    Plastic Surgery Among Ethnic Groups Mirrors Beauty Ideals – NYTimes.com – interesting divergence in consumer desires in the US

    Consumer behaviour

    It’s Not the Online Coupons. It’s the Psychology. – NYTimes.com – some people call it psychology, I’d call it targeting

    Economics

    Tyler Cowen’s Great Stagnation: The middle class is doomed. – Slate Magazine – and that’s just the case in the US

    Beijing Goes on the Hunt for Hidden China Bank Lending – WSJ – economists trying to get a better understanding of lending in the economy

    Finance

    UnionPay: China’s Unloved Monopoly – WSJ – saying that, I can’t remember people loving Electron, Switch or Maestro either

    Investors Ask, Where’s Home for Standard Chartered? – WSJ – this is more about a legacy of the empire’s trading history rather than business in many cases, though a presence in the UK is important

    Hong Kong

    Hong Kong-Listed Luxury Brands Faring Best In Mainland China: More To Come? « Jing Daily – mid-market to high-end focus and attention to Chinese consumer needs

    Innovation

    Need a really stable portable clock? Think atomic – this is insanely clever, a chip-sized atomic clock

    Japan

    Yamagirl.net – a community site for the latest Japanese style trend: yamagaaru – mountain-loving girls. Basically fashion influenced by technical clothing. There have been lots of Japanese technical wear brands like White Mountaineering and Burtons collaboration with Hiroshi Fujiwara iDiom so it was no surprise that it extended into women’s style

    FT.com | Inside Business – Stigma of failure holds back Japan start-ups – (paywall) interesting article, completely at odds to what I would have thought given the stories about the founding of Honda and Sony – huge risk taking classic start-up archetypes a la Hewlett-Packard or Apple

    U.S. Cites a Top Chinese Web Site in the Sale of Fake Goods – NYTimes.com – singling out Baidu is like singling out Google

    Luxury

    Revisiting The Prospects For “No Logo” Luxury In China « Jing Daily – it will be interesting to see how long this takes to play out

    Ye Qizheng: Brand Acquisitions A Mixed Bag For Chinese Companies « Jing Daily – really insightful stuff here, expect Chinese companies to own a lot of troubled luxury brands

    Paco Rabanne dresses for Bric success | FT.com – interesting how the Puig Group seems to be focusing more on India than China

    Report: China to be Top Luxury Buyer by 2020 – WSJ – already overtaken Japan, only needs to overhaul the US. How much of the gap is due to Chinese buyers purchasing abroad to avoid sales tax and as part of general tourism?

    Software

    Elop is after me | Code diary – interesting how much of the Qt developer community want to fork the environment and move away from Nokia. This could adversely affect the plans to sell 150 million Symbian phones over the next couple of years

    Technology

    IPad and Other Tablets Make Push Into Corporate World – NYTimes.com – “Of course, I still have a PC,” Mr. Benioff said. “But I am using it less and less and I am using my iPad more.” He called 2011 “the year of the tablet” and added: “If you call me next year, I will say it is also the year of the tablet. And if you call me in 2013, I’ll tell you it’s going to be the year of the tablet.” Of course, I could be cynical (but probably right) and say this is because the productivity argument of enterprise software and PCs is tapped out