The lipstick effect

Well, the lipstick effect is one of the consumer trends forecast for 2009. Basically, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that “consumption is more resilient than people might think” and the bad (ish) news is that the consumers mindset has turned to “recession-spending”

So, the idea goes that in a recession spending mentality, consumers veto expensive holidays and cars, but as life goes on and they still want some treats to look forward to, they save money in one place while treating themselves in another. So while they’re buying own brand groceries, their weekly treats will be more luxurious. Clarins hand cream as opposed to Atrixo, ladies, or a massage instead of a T shirt !

This self-treating phenomenon, will be really important in 2009, and will lead into other areas such as health and general well being. As people hunker down and retreat into their own homes more for entertainment and solace. Spending on homes is supposed to rise as people anticipate spending more time in their homes and entertaining more often at home. A move called “cocooning” which makes a lot of sense, particularly for some people there’ll be a worry about maintaining their homes, so the home automatically assumes more value than its had in the past.
On the shopping front, there’ll be a lot of loyalty for brands that focus on quality and value, and value can be interpreted, not only in the financial sense, but in the broader sense of adding meaning to our lives. So we can expect brands to be advertising through the recession.

Rather unsurprisingly, conspicuous consumption is expected to become less trendy and accepted, so bling is out, and care over your choices is in. This also ties in with the general trend for “thriftiness” and knocks on into the “green” trend.
On-line shopping is set to continue rising, for many reasons, simplicity and comfort of purchase(no lugging boxes around crowded shopping centres), hidden purchases (What this old thing? I’ve had it ages !) the ability to check prices with ease, and the fact that the internet has made certain types of business transparent. While the experts say that for marketing and PR purposes, online social networking sites are doing the business, and innovative online campaigns are thriving.

Although I don’t want to disparage the expert trend analysts, on a personal note, I have to say that town this weekend was swinging, the restaurants were all fully booked, shops were busy, there were queues and people seemed upbeat, indeed looking about the restaurant on Saturday night, the only question you’d be asking is “What bloody recession?” But maybe that’s just my small neck of the woods?

The real question for retailers is how can we take this knowledge and adapt our businesses and our offer to these changing consumer trends. If we’re smart the next question is how we can use the messages contained in them for our advertising and marketing?

Buzz words such as saving, treats and value are obvious winners, but how else can you promote the value in your products?

In a contacting economy people are more sensitive to receiving genuine value, they want to be sure they’re getting a good deal. So businesses that deliver value can actually do better during a recession. So instead of focusing on making more money, why not put your energy into creating and delivering real value. Find out what people REALLY want and then figure out a way to give it to them.
Note that it’s a two way process, well, three actually, you’ve got to find out what’s missing for your customers, create something to fill this gap and then go and deliver this product or service…..

So finding means – really searching for some answers ! Creating means putting your unique talent to work to plug a hole in someone’s expectations and delivering means – Making sure you’re actually getting your product or service across and people are actually benefiting from the value you’ve created.

If you don’t do all three, then it’ll be hard to receive value (money in return) If your shop is beautiful but no-one knows you’re there then you haven’t created value. If you have amazing products that will make consumers feel good, but they don’t know about them, then you haven’t created value.

Make sure you spend your time equally, finding, creating and then delivering, please remember that delivering doesn’t simply mean advertising, get creative around this area – why not set yourself a budget, say £50 and see what you can create for this, rather than waiting for magazines to call you…?