Love changes everything
This being the season for romance, Marketing Week decided to find out what digital viewers think about Valentine’s Day
Last year &£144m was spent in the UK on flowers for Valentine’s Day, a figure that suggests that we’re quite a romantic bunch. A week before Valentine’s Day we used OMD Snapshots to investigate attitudes towards the event.
We asked those panellists who are in relationships whether they were planning to celebrate Valentine’s Day in any way. Only 25 per cent were making any definite plans, with 31 per cent replying that they weren’t yet sure. Although we didn’t probe into the reasons why they were unsure, we can only assume that they were waiting to be swept off their feet by their partner, or that they prefer some spontaneity to their romance. That still leaves a third of the “spoken-for” panellists who were not planning to go a-wooing.
So are those who were planning to make it a night to remember born romantics or just looking for a quiet life? We asked those who were planning to celebrate what they really feel about Valentine’s Day.
Only 18 per cent would rather not bother at all, but feel under pressure to mark the occasion.
More heartening are the 53 per cent who say that Valentine’s Day is important to them, as it’s all too easy to forget about romance in our busy lives. A third of the attached respondents feel that it’s not necessary to have a special day to celebrate love and romance, presumably because they do it all the time.
Our research on Snapshots also reveals that Valentine’s Day is perceived as having become too commercialised, a response maybe to the growing trend among retailers to begin their Valentine’s campaigns almost as soon as Christmas is over. Most respondents feel that the day is over-hyped.
And how do single people cope with Valentine’s Day? Half of those who aren’t in a relationship said they find the whole day rather depressing and unnecessary. Our research didn’t identify any Bridget Joneses among the women – in fact single men find the day much more of an ordeal than single women.
One result that we weren’t really prepared for, and which was only discovered when some of the figures didn’t add up, is that four per cent of our married panellists are having an affair. Fortunately, perhaps, the sample size was too small to delve deeper into the issue. However, according to a source at OMD UK, it’s the couples dining out on February 13 who have quite a lot to hide!
