Culture Shifts Affecting the Post-Modern Consumer

Editor’s Note: Fresh Squeezed Ideas created a video series, The Future of Marketing and How to Win, to not only share ideas on where the future of marketing is headed, but to also provoke some new ways of thinking about brand strategy and marketing.

By Fresh Squeezed Ideas

What are the most important cultural shifts affecting today’s post-modern consumer? Explore changing culture in the sixth video of a 9-part video series entitled “The Future of Marketing and How to Win”.

Marketers really need to understand the post-modern consumer because they’re very different than they’ve been in the past. Of course, there’s demographic changes; we’re getting married older, there’s one less child in the family picture, there are more same-sex household compared to when brand management was born, babies are born to unwed mothers around 40% of the time in America, and dual income, of course, is dominant. But that’s not the whole story. The real story is how the culture has shifted. Here are examples of some cultural shifts that are very important for all cohorts:

1. We live in a time of perpetual uncertainty. Families need to be lean, flexible, and adaptable to survive. They’ve lost faith in their institutions, and so, a new frontier logic has taken hold that says, “We’re on our own. No institution is going to be around to save us. It’s all down to us.”

2. Wealth is being defined beyond money. The job outlook is very pessimistic, and what’s interesting is that we see economic behaviour that really doesn’t make any sense. On one hand, having the savviness to be able to pick out discounts and save money is prized. But, at the same time, people will walk across the street and buy a very premium suit or premium priced pair of shoes, because that has social currency. Think about shared ownership of cars, bicycles, or almost any other product these days, even dresses; owning products doesn’t have the same meaning and, therefore, money is less important.

3. The way people work is certainly different. Flexibility, fluid work environments are very common now. It’s no longer about being the company man or the company veteran. In fact, you see passion as a priority that’s even greater than having a steady job, because after the day job, many people are going back to a hobby that they’ve dreamed of turning into a career. It’s their passion, and that’s where they actually draw most of their satisfaction from. We even see this idea of the new working class hero as the proteur, the professional amateur.

4. The post modern consumer has very different attitudes towards health. Doctors are no longer the sole authority because the internet has democratized knowledge, and consumers can now go into their doctor’s office self diagnosed, and ask for a prescription. And of course, there’s a saturation of messages that raise alarm and pinpoint risk everywhere. So, consumers engage in risk reduction strategies. Think of the organic food movement, or the local movement. Even The Good Guide allows consumers to scan the bar code of any product, and understand whether the product is organic, how it’s made, and whether they’re a good corporate citizen or not. As a counter effect to the saturation of all the health messages, consumers engage in self rebellion; small rebellious activities like eating at KFC Double Down, which no one has any business eating.

5. Certainly one of the major changes is adapting to a life that is now digital. Digital is changing our society faster than we can even adapt, and while that’s exciting, it also creates anxieties. The democratization of knowledge allows people to sample the exotic very safely. They can experiment with their identity, and then publicize that identity. The counter effect to the anxiety, though, is a need for authenticity. And that movement that is about craft, local and real, is an antidote to a life that is seen as superficial and plastic.

These cultural shifts impact all customer segments differently. To be customer centric, your brand needs to invest to understand and has an opportunity to respond through your brand strategy.