Marketers support sustainable solutions

The economy is still mired in recession but forward-thinking brands will be trying to identify what kind of consumer behaviour will emerge from the downturn with 50% of the respondents to MarketingWeek.co.uk’s latest poll agreeing that “thrift” will be a long-term trend.

Birds Eye chief executive Martin Glenn suggested that thrift will be one of the important trends that marketers should be watching and building into their recovery strategies when he spoke at Marketing Week Live! on 1 July.

He said that this did not mean consumers would withhold spending but that “British consumers are telling us that they want to be a lot smarter about how they spend money”.

Glenn added that brands that continually urged people “to keep spending in an unconstrained way” were in danger of alienating consumers and said: “Consumers want great products and services but they also want companies to be part of the solution of making life on this planet more sustainable.”

The poll was not equally split on Glenn’s hypothesis as 8.5% answered “don’t know” to the suggestion and 41.5% disagreed.