Why Food Waste in the UK will Only Increase

Why Food Waste in the UK will Only Increase

Today the UK news has been dominated by research suggesting that the average British family throws away the equivalent of six meals a week.  The research, by WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme), claimed that this would equate to throwing away £60 each month. I haven’t studied the research in detail, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was true. Having read the reports and listened to people discussing the matter on phone-ins (I’ve just taken part in one for BBC Radio Five Live), there is no shortage of suggested solutions – none of which will work. All the advice about shopping more carefully, preparing meals from scratch and being more discerning about what you throw away is well-reasoned and well-intentioned: it would even solve the problem.  But it won’t happen because people haven’t diagnosed the problem properly and, in particular, haven’t considered how the consumer mind works. The first […]

Customer Satisfaction: Why It’s not Worth Asking

In my recent (very short) consumer behaviour video I made a reference to how unhelpful it can be to ask someone how satisfied they are with their consumer experience.  My point was that, given you don’t know what frame of reference someone has in mind when they respond, it’s really not that useful to know. Are they satisfied because their expectations are so low that, when nothing terrible happens, they’re grateful? Are they satisfied because what’s on offer is so formulaic that all they could do is be very dissatisfied if the delivery was below the standard? Are they satisfied because they have such little interest in whatever it is that “yes” is all they can think to say; they’ve forgotten what happened and assume, because it wasn’t memorably bad, that it must have been OK at the time? It turns out a recent study has found that people’s ratings […]

The Unconscious Impact of Brand Exposure

Yesterday’s article, for all its mediocrity (sorry about that), did spark an interesting question from Yann.  He questioned the extent to which the ads I was discussing would generate business for those companies. As I mentioned in my reply to Yann, at least part of the way in which advertising works is to “register” a brand or product at an unconscious level. Given the way in which the unconscious mind works (by associations) I’m convinced that the unconscious benefit is likely to be maximised when unconscious awareness of the ad coincides with positive emotions.  Even if the humour has little or no relevance to the product, the fact that the two exist together at that moment in time can have a positive impact. Part of the support for my theory comes from the fact that the only meaningful correlation that people who track advertising have been able to identify from […]

Reasons to Worry about the Consumer’s Unconscious Mind

One of the joys of a home office is that the commute time is pretty short – I estimate 65 yards from breakfast to the desk.  My preferred option is to get straight into my work for the day – not because I’m one of these incredibly driven types, it’s just that I find it’s one of my most productive times of the day. However, with two young children there’s some healthy competition for my time.  Today I opted for games before school, which meant a couple of games of table football with my son, one with both children and a game called Balloon Lagoon with my daughter.  They headed off to school and I started my day a little later than usual, but still considerably earlier than if I was commuting somewhere. It was whilst I was helping Martha put the Balloon Lagoon game away in the cupboard that […]