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Consumer Attitudes and Behaviour to September 2012

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Review of ConsumerShift. The most important change happening in the minds of consumers today is a shift towards post-modern values systems.

Review of ConsumerShift

ConsumerShift is a comprehensive cartography of the emerging consumer psyche. Andy Hines notes five key themes at the core of these changes -- Authenticity, Connection, Anti-Consumerism, Self-Expression, and Enoughness. Consumers in the emerging new culture increasingly view their purchases to be a form of self-expression and a reflection of their personal values. Perhaps the most impressive element of the book is the range of intellectual frameworks that Hines incorporates to develop a meta-model of client psychology.

ConsumerShift touches on over two dozen different theoretical models in understanding consumer values and psychology. Hines’ clearest contribution is the New Dimensions Values Inventory. Presently, the largest segment of the U.S. population has conventionally modern values, but a quarter of the population has shifted into post-modern values. How Whole Foods Became The Luxury Brand Of Millennials. America’s definition of luxury is changing.

How Whole Foods Became The Luxury Brand Of Millennials

Quiet, exclusive, and socially pedigreed extravagance is giving way to a new generation of affluent consumers (read: Millennials) who have grown up with a new definition of luxury that will forever change the way we market upscale goods. As the founder of Pavone, an integrated ad agency that specializes in food and beverage marketing, I’ve had the chance to observe these changes up close and personally. The trend is especially relevant to me because it seems to have become most distinctive in the food and beverage industries. How Isolation Damages Youngsters’ Developing Brains. Angela Merkel's austerity postergirl, the thrifty Swabian housewife.

In the sleepy, picturesque towns and villages of south-west Germany, the paragons of thrift are doing what they do best.

Angela Merkel's austerity postergirl, the thrifty Swabian housewife

They shop frugally, use credit cards rarely and save up to a third of a property's value before applying for a mortgage. The schwäbische Hausfrau – southern Germany's thrifty Swabian housewife – is frequently invoked by Angela Merkel. The German chancellor argues that Europe has been living beyond its means and can learn from these women's frugal housekeeping and balanced budgeting.

Heide Sickinger and Waltraud Maier, two housewives from Gerlingen, near Stuttgart, agree. "A housewife keeps the family together and the money," says Maier. Caring for family 'top moral issue for young' 11 September 2012Last updated at 22:12 ET Most young people in Britain think that morality means looking after your family or putting others first, a BBC poll suggests.

Caring for family 'top moral issue for young'

Almost 600 16 to 24-year-olds were asked to choose the most important moral issue from eight options, with 59% opting for caring for family. Some 4% said having religious faith or beliefs was the most important. The poll also suggests 51% of young people believe they are less concerned with morals than their parents. The poll, commissioned by BBC Religion and Ethics, asked young people to choose their top moral issue, with options including buying ethical products, being faithful to a partner and caring for the environment. Looking after family was the top choice, with "putting others first" coming some way behind in second. Paying taxes Four per cent listed practising a religion as the most important moral issue, the same percentage as said paying taxes.

Barely a quarter of young people now identify themselves as religious. Yelp Better: Local Search App To Find Retail Social Enterprises - Technology. These days a finger tap on a mobile device yields reviews of everything from a five-star restaurant to a grungy hole-in-the-wall gem.

Yelp Better: Local Search App To Find Retail Social Enterprises - Technology

Foodies depend on contextualized local search to guide their chow hound adventures, and a new mobile application aims to become a Yelp for the socially-minded. “Social Impact” is a free app that utilizes the iPhone’s GPS system to display the closest retail social enterprises—including restaurants, coffee shops, and craft stores. The developers, Rolfe Larson Associates, have added nearly 700 businesses to the app's database so far—each include serving the common good as part of their mission. The developers are eager for users to suggest more socially progressive businesses to grow the network. Traditional Luxury Could Suddenly Become Very Unfashionable. One theme that is growing in our minds is that if Europe is a slow car crash then the reaction of the world's populace to the wealthy is a slow lynching.

Traditional Luxury Could Suddenly Become Very Unfashionable

TMM have always observed that every dictatorship needs an archaic law with draconian penalties that is never enforced. Well to be more exact, that is only resurrected to nail an individual that can't be nailed through traditional measures. Waste Not: Can One Dog Poop-Powered Lamp Spark a Revolution? Want to save the planet with your dog's doo? Read on. When Matthew Mazzotta visited a Cambridge, MA, dog park with a friend, he noticed the trash can stuffed with bags of poop. The sight sparked inspiration; Mazzotta, an M.I.T. graduate, had been studying methane digesters for several years. On a trip to India he even watched people fuel methane stoves with dog doo to make chai tea. "With every bag of poop you tie off, you're cutting off its supply of oxygen and thus making a mini methane digester," explains Mazzotta.