I was at a seminar last week organised by the Financial Services Forum where I was lucky enough to hear Lucian Camp talk about his take on the current crisis and how it challenges advertising and commuication. I agree with him that something fundamental has changed and we are moving away from a predominant focus on "Greed" to needs around "fear".

However I don't particularly like the concept of Greed and Fear since I have rarely heard consumers talk about these words directly. I prefer to think of it as "gain" and "protect". Over the past 20 years the prevailing mood has been "gain" - gaining goods, houses, wealth, quality of life, happiness, health. This doesn't mean we have achieved any of these things but we have experienced the advertising of aspiration.

We have now been shocked into a different mode - that of "protection". We have all been given pause for thought on whether our jobs, our homes, our families, even the system we rely on, are secure and around for the long term. Products and messages that talk about protecting and sustaining what one has now are more in the current zeitgeist. These messages are also more in tune with the global sustainability issues that we are all facing.

Here are 5 rules for marketers to think of as we ride this trend:

1. Invest more time in understanding consumers worries, frustrations and concerns. I've often seen research spend too much time focusing on what people want, with almost an embarrassment to talk about problems that are more negative. Spend time wallowing in these fears with your consumer. From this new insights will come which might not be positive but will resonate strongly in today's market.

2. Don't be afraid to link your brand to these concerns in communication. One of the challenges that many of us will need to battle with is that if your career is less thn 15 years old then you've only ever worked in the good times. My generation of marketers have only been used to dealing with positive messaging - I think we are a bit afraid of the brand equity we build by talking about negative situations. The best brands will go with the consumer, build equity of "understanding" and "on your side" by reflecting consumer needs hence Rule#1.

3. Move your product development to focus on protection and design products which are sustainable and thrifty. I blogged a while ago about my adventures trying to fix my toaster. Products which help consumers protect what they have whilst having features which are thrifty and sustainable will better meet these needs. Products such as LCD TVs with "eco settings", Ariel and its turn down to 30 campaign, or printers from HP which have much lower running costs are all examples.

4. Big brands have a great opportunity to gain market share. Small brands need to be faster and closer to their niche. In this environment there will be a natural move to bigger, less risky brands. The big brands that invest through this period will prosper. Those that don't run the risk that consumers write them off as having failed during the downturn (even if they haven't). Small brands need to be faster with new concepts and products and more focused than ever on their niches. Luckily more and more niches are appearing and new channels allow greater ability to connect with these groups.

5. (Small) Moments of pleasure matter more than ever. The protection agenda, and the recent crisis, for all the media's efforts to persaude us otherwise, doesn't mean a return to mud huts and sack cloth and ashes. However I suspect the embullience of the past cycle will be more muted for a long time. And that means that moments of pleasure and escape will mean even more to people. We are seeing this with consumer spending moving into cinema tickets, chocolate, staycations, and eating well at home, small moments of often thrifty pleasure.

As always please feel free to comment and share your views. I will try and reply to all comments so please leave one if you have a thought.

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Yours

Justin

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