New Irish Female Consumer Behaviours

Dr Kenneth McKenzie, Strategic Planner,

Motiveworks / Owens DDB

ken@motiveworks.ie

Aims

• Dig down into the question.

• Play devil’s advocate.

• Present what is tenable.

• Enable you to ask tighter questions.

New Irish Female Consumer Behaviours

• What do we mean by ‘new’?

• Since 2007/8?

• Since 2000?

• Since 1997?

• Since???

• And we can ask a question about ‘Irish’ (wrt immigration

and cross-national comparisons).

Hinterland

• We rely too much on TGI, Nielsen, Dunhumby…

• Great databases, but…

• Proprietary research is expensive & can be patchy.

• Reams of data on human behaviour.

• On female behaviour…

• On female behaviour X nationality.

Where can we go for answers?

• Secondary data analysis.

• Statutory

• The canon

• Demography, Sociology, Economics,

• Human Geography, Psychology, Political Science.

Let’s operationalise

• What?!

• Why?

• Because people’s lives are complicated…

• and complex.

Restate the question

• How have women changed in a generation?

• 20 years.

• Female labour force participation is critical datum.

• Trivial truth: new things allow us to do new things.

• Sex differential?

What hasn’t changed

• Chores & shopping

• Gershuny.

• Childcare.

• Fit new behaviours into this matrix.

What has generally always been true

• Intrinsic vs extrinsic drives.

• Actualisation through others.

• ‘Dovetailing’

What’s new and old

• Education participation

• Postgrad trajectories

What’s new

• Escapist consumption: definitely

• Veblenian convergence: possibly.

• Psychoanalytic rebellion: Peto.

What’s new, but mightn’t be that differentiating

But life cycle effect is CRITICAL

• Alwin: values research.

• Stated preferences vs revealed preferences

The sweet spot is the win-win

To conclude

• Win-win has been well articulated in FMCGs.

• ZMOT applies more to sex-specific goods.

• Affiliative and harmony needs won’t lessen.

• We need to be geekier than is generally found in

MarComms.