Re:think Reflections: Part 1

Earlier this year, I had what I jokingly refer to as an 18-point technology meltdown. In truth, there were probably more like 6 points, but hyperbole makes for a more entertaining story. Basically what it boils down to is this: I use a lot of devices, and they all broke at once. And that doesn’t even get into the software and email server failures that accompanied the hardware breakdowns.

There was a point at which my emails to a client suddenly started bouncing back, and a customer service agent for our email hosting company said to me, “I don’t have time to help you on this.”

If you’re one of my 700+ Facebook friends (we’re all close, of course), you saw my choice words for that particular occasion. (And you heard from me again when I boarded the very Delta flight on which I’m writing this invective, and discovered that I had paid an additional fee for “extra legroom” at a seat that does not, in fact, have any extra legroom.)

Apparently I’m not alone in my state of aggravation toward product quality, customer service, and corporations that abuse my goodwill. In fact, there is a name for the anger we feel as consumers in today’s political and corporate climate. We are the “global enraged.”

Trust in politics and corporations has been declining since the mid-60s, according to J. Walker Smith, Executive Chairman of The Futures Company and keynote speaker at the 2013 Advertising Research Foundation’s Re:think conference. As of 2012, a global average of 28% (and over half of the middle class) is really enraged, disenchanted with the full range of today’s business and political environment. I’m merely part of the 90% who feel a lot of anger toward some element of that climate.

Go ahead. Crack a pencil. You'll feel better.

Worldwide, we are one pissed off set of consumers.

I take an odd solace in knowing that I’m not only not alone, I’m part of a cultural zeitgeist, a worldwide uprising that brought about riots in Egypt, and camped out protesters at Occupy Wall Street. It’s a global phenomenon that is so profound it almost promises change. Maybe there’s hope.

Nevertheless, as a consumer insights professional, it’s my also job to curtail this escalating outrage. A fellow researcher at Re:think said it best -- she referred to our seats at the executive table as “the voice of the consumer.” So I suggest the following to my colleagues and comrades in the research industry: if consumers’ voices aren’t being heard, then we ourselves need to be louder. We are part of the problem.

Being louder and being heard are easier said than done, of course. It’s not easy to tell a CEO that by boosting margins they might be feeding long-term consumer backlash, and it takes a bullet proof vest and a helmet to tell a network executive that their pet project is totally misaligned with the audience of their TV network. (There is, mind you, a nuance to doing exactly that, which I address in Part 2.)

But here’s the gentle reality check: we have to, that voice is what makes our profession relevant and necessary. If we’re not using our voices, we’re not representing the consumer. And being the voice of the consumer, that’s the very commitment we made when we chose this line of work.

-Kerry

Editorial addendum: At the conclusion of my writing this blog, Delta comped our entire row free drinks as an apology for the bait and switch on the leg room seats. It’s probably the most expensive drink any of us ever purchased, but I give credit to the flight attendant – we all feel a bit less enraged now.