A leap straight from the treat-yourself mindset of the pandemic into a cost-of-living crisis has left consumers re-assessing their core values and what they value from brands, a six month study has revealed at Nine’s Big Ideas Store today.
With the study looking into what consumers value from brands and how they felt brands were delivering on matching these, the study delved into the Groceries, Instore Retail, Travel, Financial Services and Tech & Appliances categories and what value looks like not just today but what are predicted to be the main drivers of value into the next decade.
While 2023 may have a strong focus on price point, what consumers value from brands is shifting, the research from Powered and FiftyFive5 shows. The research illustrates consumers are currently placing value in brands that offer ‘security’, ‘trust’ and ‘reliable information’.
A panel featuring McDonald’s director of CBI & strategy Colin Glynn, FiftyFive5 director Hannah Krijnen, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age journalist Jessica Yun and Powered’s content partnerships and client experience director, Sarah Stewart, discussed today what the value equation is for brands.
While value is hard to define, the study identifies 13 different types of values ranging from cost, trust, fundamentals, social impact, enrichment, progress, usability to experience, extra benefit, feel valued and expertise among others.
With more than 1,000 consumers studied, the research breaks down each category to reveal insights benchmarked against each of the 13 values to help brands understand what key audiences are thinking, what categories are performing well and how brands can respond to this changing landscape.
One of the findings was that fundamental values ranked highly for each category but significantly, social responsibility exists in some way across all five categories. With consumers currently living aside political instability and cost of living, we are in a time that “is sink or swim for brands”, according to FiftyFive5’s Krijnen, who says consumers want a reason to back brands, who in turn, need to prove they are doing what they say they are doing.
“To be able to robustly and rigorously through these methods show that values do appear differently across these categories; that we can actually pin that down to significantly different and distinct is really important,” said Krijnen.
“I suspected something like fundamentals to be there for every category, but to see social impact rise to the point where it’s another consistent type of value expected to run across all categories is a big shift. The expectation of brands doing something beyond the transaction, or beyond the product I’m delivering to you, is now so important.”
When the research examined what would be more important value drivers in 2030 than 2023, the majority of respondents talked about the desire for more stability. While the cost-of-living crisis is a focus now, the greater expectations of brands on offering value beyond their core product and service is likely to increase.
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