Spending abroad

Lot of Slovaks visited not only before Easter shopping centers and groceries in Hungary, Czech Republic and Poland due to depreciation of their local currencies against Euro. It gained 10-30% against national currencies in last couple of weeks. Our banks reported up to 10x increase in payments with cards in these countries.

Reactions:

• Citizens usually tend to say: local stores should decrease their price and find savings in order to keep up with their counterparts in abroad.
• Local authorities say: we have 19% flat VAT compared to 7 or 10% VAT on groceries in Poland or Czech so there is the reason of higher price level in Slovakia.

Whether is the truth on one, or other side or somewhere in the middle one thing is indisputable: price of cars or real estate today compared to last year´s are much lower. This answers their earnings of 3,4 billions Euro for Volkswagen in H1 2008 or 183 mil. Euro for Immoeast (biggest CEE developer) in Q1 2008.

New Microsoft viral

Have you seen it?

It is aimed against Apple as continuation of the "I am a PC" campaign. It´s goal is to convince people that PC platform is cheaper and offers much wider range of products where everyone can easily choose according to his/her preferences.

Microsoft asked 2 people Lauren and Gianpaolo called as "laptop hunters" to get laptop as they want between 700 and 2000 USD. They were allowed to keep the laptops they selected plus the difference in money from what they had originally planned to spend and what they actually spent.

See Gianpaolo video


See Lauren video

There are more than 340 000 of Lauren and 500 000 views of Gianpaolo virals on YouTube today.

Campaign was again created by Crispin Porter & Bogusky. Reported The inspiration room.

Cultural difference

Our globe is getting more cross connected but there are still differences:

• When I was in Spain or Italy you know that the restaurants are empty until 8pm but full at 9pm. There is hardly a chance to get a seat without reservation in good restaurant. That is the time when people get from work and have a good time in usually larger company.
• When I was on New Zealand you know that after 8pm you hardly get a seat in restaurant and after 10pm it is impossible. That is the time, when people are at home or getting to bed that is why you should hurry to restaurants before 6pm there.

We in Central Europe are somewhere in between. Our dinner time is usually between 6-8pm. We are the golden average.

Fascinating pictures

You already may have seen these pictures but they still be amazing and thrilling:

- Nissan has announced plans to cut its Sunderland workforce by 1,200. Thousands of unsold cars are stored around the factory's test track:- Imported cars stored at Sheerness open storage area awaiting delivery to dealers:- The build-up of imported cars at the port of Newark, New Jersey:

Slovakia produces most cars per capita in the world. VW, Kia, Peugeot are produced here which makes automotive industry the biggest by contributing with 30+% into country´s GDP. With that we are strongly affected by the current economic situation. The situation is the same here at local car dealerships. Parking lots and also the grass lawn around are usually full of cars.

So what to do?
The local government decided to support new cars sales by financial contribution if someone decide to scrap his 10+ years old car. I don´t want to be too protectionist but this helped mostly to foreing producers as approx only 5% of all production ends on local market. Thanks God that "scrap funding" is introduced in more than 15 EU countries.

Continuous Partial Attention

On the blog of Linda Stone I have found an interesting article describing new behaviour of young people today called continuous partial attention. I am posting some interesting excerpts of this article:

What is continuous partial attention? Continuous partial attention describes how many of us use our attention today. It is different from multi-tasking. The two are differentiated by the impulse that motivates them. When we multi-task, we are motivated by a desire to be more productive and more efficient. We're often doing things that are automatic, that require very little cognitive processing. We give the same priority to much of what we do when we multi-task -- we file and copy papers, talk on the phone, eat lunch -- we get as many things done at one time as we possibly can in order to make more time for ourselves and in order to be more efficient and more productive.

To pay continuous partial attention is to pay partial attention -- CONTINUOUSLY. It is motivated by a desire to be a LIVE node on the network. Another way of saying this is that we want to connect and be connected. We want to effectively scan for opportunity and optimize for the best opportunities, activities, and contacts, in any given moment. To be busy, to be connected, is to be alive, to be recognized, and to matter.

We pay continuous partial attention in an effort NOT TO MISS ANYTHING. It is an always-on, anywhere, anytime, any place behavior that involves an artificial sense of constant crisis. We are always in high alert when we pay continuous partial attention. This artificial sense of constant crisis is more typical of continuous partial attention than it is of multi-tasking.

Is continuous partial attention a good thing or a bad thing? Like so many things, in small doses, continuous partial attention can be a very functional behavior. However, in large doses, it contributes to a stressful lifestyle, to operating in crisis management mode, and to a compromised ability to reflect, to make decisions, and to think creatively. In a 24/7, always-on world, continuous partial attention used as our dominant attention mode contributes to a feeling of overwhelm, over-stimulation and to a sense of being unfulfilled. We are so accessible, we're inaccessible. The latest, greatest powerful technologies have contributed to our feeling increasingly powerless.

More on the link above.

Consumer priorities in a tough economy

Association of National Advertisers Brand Management Committee discussed the consumer view of purchasing in this economy and which categories are still seeing growth.

What are consumers thinking today?

• "Why do I have to pay more?"
• "I have choices, especially with private label products."
• "I'm delaying my purchase until I have a better sense of economic stability."
• "I'm looking for ways to save money and will consider brands with the most value for my money."
• "I'm making fewer shopping trips, so my trip has to count."
• "I'm carefully considering each of my purchases and doing more research prior to buying."
• "I still want convenience and to save time."
• "I look for special offers and coupons and will sacrifice my preferred brand if necessary."
• "I want my brand/company to know me (e.g. special attention from sales/customer service)."
• "I appreciate being rewarded (e.g. automatic discounts, frequent buyer cards)."
• "I want to be kept up to date on new trends."
• "I want to trust that you will be around and be confident in the product you are selling me (e.g. especially financial services and automotive)."
  

What are consumers buying more of?

• Beer.
• Lottery tickets.
• Comfort food.
• Cosmetics ("a little bag of happy").
• Short-term liquidity (e.g., money markets).
• Household safes.

Does this list sound familiar to you?

People trust consumer product reviews

According Forrester research survey published in one of my earlier post most people (77%) trust an information received in email from someone they know and on the second place (60%) consumer product rating/review. So let´s look at this review thing, as I have found an interesting slide:

Let´s mention at least the two websites using this method BestBuy or Amazon:

And some of them build their business on it as Consumersearch:

or epinions:

Bottom line? When making an TV ad for your company keep in mind, that prospectives will far more believe in what is written on these sites by another users. So use your cretive energy for something else. Article originally published on my Slovak Word-of-mouth blog.