Getting closer to the Great British public

Editor's Notes

• #4 It’s by no means just the young who feel weighed down by the burden of work and financial instability, especially when trying to plan for the future. Fear is often driven through anxiety about the unknown in an uncertain world. Fear drives us to isolate ourselves from others, creating divisions between people and leaving us feeling helpless. As this example shows, it’s by no means just the young fear financial instability in day-to-day life. Extra material A constant flow of people in and out of communities can make it hard for some to feel completely at home: “I used to know everyone on my street. In the last 5 years there’s been such a high turn-over of people that now I only know my neighbours either side.” – Mark, Thurrock The world of work and student debt is worrying for many. With students coming out of universities with debts exceeding tens of thousands of pounds, young adults feel a burden before they’ve begun their careers: “I’ve got a massive student debt… I’ve got about £60k of debt just from my masters and I’m earning £7.70 an hour so it’s not going very well… I’ve got friends who’ve got a masters degree but who can’t get a job as a waiter.” – Eli, Aberystwyth
• #5 Money – from not having enough of it, falling into debt, keeping up with the bills and being able to buy things, is a source of increasing fear for people – and this fear divides. People are very wary of what others are perceived to earn, and hold a negative view of those who they perceive to earn more than themselves. This is made worse by the fact that everybody thinks that everybody else earns more than they do. However, these assumptions are far from accurate. For example, the average household income in London is £41 thousand pounds. People expect it to be far higher, with Londoners estimating £58 thousand pounds but Brits outside London assuming £82 thousand pounds.
• #6 Looking at the estimated earnings of different group by the Great British public, you begin to get an idea of the assumptions people make about different stereotypes in society. A pensioner’s average household income is actually closer to £30,000, but is assumed to be £21k, and averaged £18k among pensioner’s when they were asked to guess.
• #7 We all cite money as one of the biggest grumbles or concerns in our lives, although the more you earn the less you worry.   Increasingly, markers of wealth and prosperity are linked to being part of a powerful elite. As you can see here, there’s a strong negative correlation between assumed income and how positively people view different groups, with those assumed to be earning the most being the least popular, along with ‘millennials’, whatever they are.
• #8 There is the ‘millennial’, a label that we know creates huge debate within the industry and more broadly. Although the age range of 18-34 is casually thrown around as a defining characteristic of the ‘millennial’, this seems to have been the case for years. How can you have a label that encompasses 18 year olds doing their A-levels or apprenticeships as well as 34 year-old home-owning parents, some with teenage children of their own? These simply aren’t good enough and only do the planner, the brand and most importantly the consumer, a disservice.
• #9 The class system no longer has clear boundaries. 50% of the population consider themselves neither working nor middle class and the same amount don’t consider themselves a class at all when asked which applied to them. The imagery linked to these labels doesn’t resonate with people’s views of their identities. It’s far more relevant to focus on what unites us.
• #10 The class system no longer has clear boundaries. 50% of the population consider themselves neither working nor middle class and the same amount don’t consider themselves a class at all when asked which applied to them. The imagery linked to these labels doesn’t resonate with people’s views of their identities. It’s far more relevant to focus on what unites us.
• #11 There is a feeling that advertising is becoming removed from humanity, serving a purely economic purpose, trying to maximise profit. People want to see things like graft, personality and community celebrated in advertising. There’s a sense that generally people are finding their situation increasingly frustrating and challenging, and there’s the want and desire to pull together and celebrate community in response to this.
• #12 There is a feeling that advertising is becoming removed from humanity, serving a purely economic purpose, trying to maximise profit. People want to see things like graft, personality and community celebrated in advertising. There’s a sense that generally people are finding their situation increasingly frustrating and challenging, and there’s the want and desire to pull together and celebrate community in response to this.
• #13 People are united on what they view as success, and it often differs from how success is represented in the media. From a young age we are shown similar representations of success. Things like having a lot of money, being promoted / being the boss, or being famous or well known. However, Newsworks’ research shows that these are the three least likely to make people feel most successful. Overall happiness, health and control of our lives are viewed as far more important indicators of success than having lots of money. 70% said that having a happy family life would make them feel most successful. People value happiness at home and in their communities far more than riches or celebrity status.
• #14 The media, brands and advertisers aren’t doing a good enough job of representing the everyday person. This can be problematic, especially for the very young, who get a warped view of normality. The labels we’re using are effectively dissecting the country and advertising misses the desire from people to celebrate community. This ‘pigeon-holing’ is furthering division. Brands, advertisers and planners need to look closer to home when trying to uncover and discover the real, every day aspirations of the Great British public.
• #15 Age is as unrepresentative as other labels: Only 39% of 18-34 year old ‘millennials’ actually class themselves as ‘young’. It seems that people tend to associate the term ‘young’ with those younger than themselves. Parallels can be drawn with the term ‘old’, with only 29% of those 65+ describing themselves as ‘old’, although 86% are ‘pensioners’.
• #16 There are many labels and stereotypes associated with different age brackets, but these labels don’t always apply to those that you’d expect them to. For example, the older generations are far more likely than the young to view progress and change as a good thing and it’s those between the ages of 18-44 who’re most likely to say progress and change are bad. The older offer an opportunity, as their willingness to embrace change and progress in combination with relatively more time and disposable income mean that influencing them can influence whole communities.
• #17 We clearly value graft very highly within society and we want to see everyday hard work recognised as it’s something that we all relate to and that unites us. Of all of the labels that the respondents to the research were asked to rank, ‘hard working families’ consistently came out at the top in terms of positive sentiment. The Great British public have the most positive view of ‘hard working families’ at 66%.
• #18 Not all news is hard news. Print newsbrands compete well with social media on where people go for their fill of pop culture and fashion. However, print newsbrands excel in providing information so readers can stay up to date and learn about what’s most important.
• #19 Many beliefs, values and attitudes can be accurately identified in a consumer’s choice of newsbrand. This is where newsbrands provide a telling insight in getting under the skin of what it is that people value. 71% of variance in views on success, politics, risk and generosity are explained by the newspaper you read. To get to this figure, Tapestry undertook a key driver analysis to investigate the strength of relationships between possible drivers of beliefs and behaviours. Correlations were made between newsbrand readership and views on success, politics, risk and generosity to establish the statistical relationship between the variables.
• #20 Brands and advertisers are out of touch with how consumers want to be represented. Less than one in five (only 17%) of people think that adverts can often introduce them to new products or services that they’d not thought of before. We know that people don’t spend all their waking hours poring over which brand of butter to buy, as there are far more important things to life. Brand and product choices have minor significance in the grand scheme of things. This said, it’s obvious that advertising isn’t fulfilling its potential to provide serendipitous brand moments to consumers.
• #21 This was demonstrated by recent research from Newsworks and the7stars ‘Pop goes the filter bubble’. With 63% of consumers craving more serendipitous brand moments online, there is clearly an opportunity to go beyond the comfort of targeting and burst the bubble of algorithm ignorance. A question brands need to address is how to define relevance in their targeting strategies. Consumers are most likely to agree that they associate relevance with their personal interests and hobbies rather than being related to previous browsing and shopping behaviours or their demographics.
• #22 Recommendations for planners: Know what pulls people apart – fear, money and stereotypes. People fear the unknown, have negative and often inaccurate views of how much others earn and reject stereotypes and labels that they feel are assigned to them and misrepresent them. Know what unites us – people want to come together. There are common human values that we all share which unify us. These values go beyond politics and superficial brand purpose. We crave a sense of community. We have similar views on success and are generous towards others in our communities. Always check the label and your assumptions. Brands and advertisers are often out of touch with the ways that the Great British public want to be represented and planners need to look closer to home to discover the real aspirations of their audiences. Labels that are being assigned to audiences don’t mean the same thing to all people, therefore they’re not recognising themselves and not identifying with the people that are supposed to portray them and their wants and needs. Recognise and explore new core values. Brands need to appeal to emotion and tell a story based around new core values of graft, personality and community. Brand communications can unify and there are significant untapped brand building opportunities for advertisers who are able to harness our desire to see our community values and collective attitudes to things like graft and personality realised in advertising.