Experience is the new currency
Thursday, 13 April, 2006
Kim Maxwell
Frame your wine message differently and you’ll appeal to consumers’ needs for experiential differentiation, says trend analyst Crawford Hollingworth. But ensure that your product reflects truth and ethical values, he tells Kim Maxwell.
‘I do a lot of work on how the world is changing. Some people call it tracking trends; I call it energies. To me, trends sound static whereas energy is physical and has to go somewhere.’ Crawford Hollingworth is the executive chairman of Henley Centre Headlight Vision. His company tracks global consumer trends and helps clients use this ‘accumulated intelligence’ to make better choices. Hollingworth is well qualified, after building Headlight Vision in the UK and USA. When he sold it to WPP, the world’s largest communication group, they merged Headlight Vision with their trend division, Henley Centre, in 2005. WPP owns over 80 companies including heavyweight international ad agencies such as Ogilvy & Mather and Young & Rubicam, strategy units and market research companies.
As Hollingworth explains, they seek the new and the next for clients that include governments and corporates to drinks giant Diageo (whose brands include Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker and Guinness). ‘We create future scenarios for clients. They then decide which future they prefer and we can paint a picture accordingly,’ he says. ‘We work with them to understand their consumer, and help them drive their brand.’
Despite this background of super-branding, Hollingworth believes there is a window for small, nimble companies. ‘The concept of retail space or communication space is in flux. Where we buy is changing, so where people find their experiences is changing.’ Referring to popular website www.myspace.com (bought by Rupert Murdoch in 2005) where over 50 million predominantly younger consumers discuss their favourite leisure spots, music, books and friends, Hollingworth says ordinary consumers are increasingly using private spaces on websites to exchange personal information. This in turn creates brand following. ‘Brands were built for conventional media. But with digital media, conventional dictates and controls are being challenged,’ he says.
Hollingworth’s research shows that today’s global consumers are increasingly affluent but also increasingly short of time, because work or social commitments never allow them to tune out. Time and energy are increasingly valued, above information, money or space. If experience is the new currency, experiential consumption applies to treks across the Himalayas – adrenaline activities - to quests for exotic flavours in foods. ‘Traditional status symbols are still envied, but the person who takes off six months to tour Australia is more envied than somebody with a fancy car,’ says Hollingworth.
There’s a growth in savvy consumers who buy cheap day-to-day basics alongside premium brands. But also increasing support for smaller suppliers because people are fed up. ‘It’s not only youngsters; there’s a whole range of over-45s. They’re consumers looking for things not everybody else has, bored with mass consumption and searching for a difference.’
Hollingworth identifies three key consumer trigger points: authenticity, environmental chic and societal responsibility. ‘In the search for meaning, authenticity doesn’t necessarily mean heritage. Rather, those premium consumers are looking for products that are true, that connect them to values but also lift them out of the crowd. I tell whisky companies that nobody wants to hear about peaty bogs. Give them quirky, interesting truths instead.’
He says bigger brands are already punting nature and bio-diversity because it’s hip to talk about in the context of a damaged planet. Similarly, mainstreaming of ethical issues is trendy i.e. Fairtrade clothing ranges and coffee beans. Instead of seeing money as a means of buying status or quality of life, consumers can use it as a vote. This doesn’t mean producers have to promote Fairtrade wine necessarily, but they should be cleaning up their ethical act.
You might be wondering what this all has to do with South African wine. Well, understanding consumers and finding new ways of communicating is integral to a wine business traditionally applying yawn-worthy approaches. ‘There are incredible narratives in South Africa. There is rich and experiential energy, captured by young winemakers in particular. A lot of the wine industry has a fairly dogmatic approach. But South Africa’s wine strength is its smallness. It’s also its commercial weakness because it can’t supply volumes, so a new retail model should be created,’ challenges Hollingworth. ‘The virtual world has both complicated and empowered us. I could set up a wine website in an hour, and use narratives to draw people to the site. So tell your stories and heritage in a modern, compelling way and link them to modern trends.’
‘No one is going to run away from Tescos or Woolworths. But it doesn’t mean you can’t change the rules. You can assemble small armies in cyberspace. Package different winemakers together – there is collective power when the right people are combined.’