Strategies For A New Consumer Age
MEC asked experts from inside and outside WPP to comment on how the financial crisis and other global forces will shape future consumer behaviour.
In late 2009, MEC asked a number of commentators, both from within and outside WPP, to share their thoughts on the effects that major global forces, most particularly the financial crisis, were having on consumer behaviour. Our main concern was to understand how consumers around the world would behave when the recession was over, and how brands could best capitalise on this.
The various local recoveries now being reported have yet to be felt by many consumers, and good times still seem a long time away in some countries. But at the same time, many people have benefited from other global changes taking place: a return to simplicity and downsizing has not been a universal feature of this downturn. As the US and Europe suffered, many Asian and Latin American markets have blossomed.
What is certainly clear is that marketers are still wrestling with their response to changes that have already taken place: there are still many brand-owners who need to make important shifts in the way they think and behave if they are to thrive in the interesting times that lie ahead.
Contributors include Sir Martin Sorrell, Mark Read, Mel Varley, Charles Courtier, and Caroline Foster Kenny.