CMOs Face New Reality. In the transition to a post-recession economy, companies face a huge challenge: selling products to weary (and wary) consumers whose buying patterns have been altered -- and perhaps forever changed -- by the economic downturn. But the equation for CMOs and their agencies is actually more complicatied than that. The focus on corporate budget cuts has changed to a demand for sales growth, and to achieve that goal, marketers must transform their communications to address consumer mind-set shifts, often with flat or declining budgets.
In fact, "expectations for marketing have never been higher" at a time when "the challenges have never been greater," according to a new Accenture survey of global marketers. The majority of those marketers -- eight out of 10 -- said they expect to see either little to no growth in their budgets or an actual decline.
The most lasting impact will be on customers' expectations for product quality, value, price and customer service, Accenture said. The Scary Truth About Americas Disappearing Middle Class - GOOD Blog - GOOD. In a new report, MIT's David Autor (PDF) looks at the shifting employment landscape in America and comes to this conclusion: America's workforce is splitting into high- and low-paying jobs. The middle-income demographic is disappearing. He calls it "the polarization of job opportunities. " The chart below tells the story. The height of those columns reflects the growth rate for a given kind of job. On the horizontal axis we go from high-skill, high-income jobs on the left to low-skill, low-income jobs on the right.
The valley in the middle is the eroding middle class. Here's how Autor describes the trend: The structure of job opportunities in the United States has sharply polarized over the past two decades, with expanding job opportunities in both high-skill, high-wage occupations and low-skill, low wage occupations, coupled with contracting opportunities in middle-wage, middle-skill white-collar and blue-collar jobs.
This trend hasn't gone unnoticed. Study Shows Consumer Spending Patterns Still in Flux Across Product Categories | Chadwick Martin Bailey. Consumer Spending Patterns Still in Flux Across Product Categories Study from Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies finds 33% of consumers plan to maintain reduced spending habits, while 43% are undecided Boston, MA August 3, 2010-In a recent study on consume r spending in the wake of the recession, it’s clear manyconsumers are either sticking with their “new normal” or are still forming their new spending habits and don’t plan to fully return to their old spending habits.
The study of over 1500 US consumers by market research firms Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies found that although 24% of consumers only made minor cutbacks to their spending during this economic downturn, another 33% who reduced their spending plan to continue with their new slimmed down budgets even during an economic comeback. Recovery Varies by Product CategoryThe study showed four groupings of product categories, some seemingly closer to rebounding than others: The New Abnormal. In March, Ralph Ronzio went to a warehouse in a seedy part of Orange County, Calif., and watched a guy auction off his condo for half what he'd paid for it. Ronzio had bought the place for $329,000 in 2005, when he moved to Southern California from Rhode Island to take a job at a data-storage company. It was the first place he'd ever owned. "It was totally my bachelor pad," he says.
"Not much inside other than the usual leather couch and the big screen TV. That wasn't the only thing that changed when Ronzio got engaged. The more he thought about the money he was losing, the more it stressed him out. It used to be that someone like Ralph Ronzio could be fairly certain of the outcome when spending a few hundred thousand dollars on real estate. That was the old normal.
The current circumstances might be better described as the new abnormal, in which no one knows anything. So who are all those people at the mall? The new abnormal has given rise to a nation of schizophrenic consumers. The 11 Manliest Cocktails In The World. You wouldn’t be caught dead drinking a cosmo, but all your friends will be drinking these at your funeral. 11. Irish Car Bomb Why is it manly? : What’s manlier than going mano-a-beero with a pint of the world’s thickest stout mixed with a shot of whiskey?
Knowing that if you don’t chug it fast enough, you’ll be downing chunks of curdled Bailey’s cream. Recipe: 3/4 pint Guinness stout 1/2 shot Bailey’s Irish cream 1/2 shot Jameson Irish whiskey 10. Why is it manly:? 1 mason jar halfway full of moonshine Fill the jar with branch water 9. Why is it manly? ¾ oz. scotch ¼ oz. 8. Why is it manly? 2 oz Yukon Jack liqueur 1 dash Lime juice 7. Why is it manly? Recipe: 8 oz chilled Gatorade energy drink 4 oz Jagermeister herbal liqueur 6. Why is it manly? Recipe: 2 1/2 ounces Gin. 1 oz. orange juice. Equal parts mind on your money and money on your mind 5. Why is it manly? 2 oz. premium vodka 1 oz. 4.
Why is it manly? 2 measures Tequila Orange juice 2 dashes Grenadine 3. What makes it manly? 1 tsp Sugar 1-1/2 oz Rye whiskey. Recession Imposes New World Order. Not unlike WPP Group CEO Martin Sorrell's "less worse" assessment of the 2010 advertising marketplace, consumers are less anxious about the recession but remain cautious about how they spend their money, according to a new global survey from The Boston Consulting Group.
The anxiety levels are highest in Spain, Mexico and Japan, and more than half of the respondents in India, the United States and France remain worried about the future. The percentages, however, declined from a year ago. Fifty-four percent of the U.S. respondents, for example, characterized themselves as anxious -- down from 63 percent last spring but still above the pre-recession level of 42 percent in the spring of 2007, BCG said. In a summary of the survey, "A New World Order of Consumption: Consumers in a Turbulent Recovery," BCG concludes that businesses should regularly rethink product pricing and sharpen their in-store marketing efforts. "This downturn really has been a roller-coaster ride for consumers," she said.