by Mimi Nicklin (@MimiNicklin) When you write at this time of year, there are a few obvious options. Write about Christmas. Write about the year gone by. Write about the year to come. I am going to assume that there will be plenty of all three published in the next few days and do none of the above… Instead, I want to talk about the place where I will be spending the next few weeks: home.
More specifically, and to not bore you with the details of my own home, the power of ‘home truths’ for our South African shopper.
The focal point
Just as homes are the physical and emotional centres of our lives, so too are they the focal point of our consumption and spending. Yet, when you walk around the store, how often do you see products and offers tailored to this powerful emotional context for our shoppers?
We may be a very diverse nation but there is mass consensus about how we feel about our homes. Quite simply, South Africans love our homes — we spend most of our time there (65%+) and making this space comfortable for our families is a top priority across the nation.
Ninety-six percent of people feel it is very important that you make your house a comfortable and proud place for your family* and, on average, South Africans spend over two hours a day on housework and household maintenance* to ensure their continual quality and care — a figure much higher than many countries around the world, proving we South Africans love caring for, and shopping for, our homes!
Most of our social time
What we mustn’t forget is that most of our social time is also spent in or near our homes, which therefore means that most our consumption occurs in the home: food, alcohol, white goods, clothing, beauty products, homeware — the list goes on.
Home is that wonderful place of your own, a happy place, a personal space and, literally, the four walls that surround every product you ever decide to purchase.
The question I pose, though, is: “How often does your brands’ shopper insight consider the home in its positioning and messaging?”
Visualising
Recently, a woman explained to me that “when I shop the cleaning aisle I am at home in my kitchen, not in the store.” She went on to describe that when she shops for cleaning and washing products she is visualising “the shelf above the washing machine, the cupboard below the sink and what the bottle of Sunlight looked like after breakfast this morning.”
The shelf, it seems, was of very little consequence when compared to the ‘home’ the products were being purchased for.
Where it gets interesting is that many of these decisions are made by the home as a total unit versus just by an individual, making this ‘power of home’ ever further reaching and giving ‘pester power’ a whole new meaning.
Prepares, refreshes and renews
In recent qualitative research, we have found that, while the majority of spend increases in December for all the obvious reasons, there is a spike that occurs around October. It is a spike that is filtered towards the likes of Makro, and Mr Price Home, and Builders Warehouse as the nation prepares, refreshes and renews the home for the holiday period.
Furthermore, when the Unilever Institute surveyed SA and asked people what, if anything, they had done to improve their homes this year, 60% said they had invested in some kind of home improvement. Friends are coming to stay, the family is planning on your garden for the Dec 25th celebrations, or your relatives that you haven’t seen for three years are coming to “judge”.
It is on this final five-letter word that rand after rand is spent to prove, improve, show and share those critical few rooms you call your own.
Our homes matter
The short and simple truth is that our homes matter and what we put in them is of utmost importance — whether it’s the toilet roll in the bathroom, the sauce on the table or the new dining room chairs. There is a whole host of shopping going on which we as marketers are totally under-capitalising on, if not ignoring entirely.
So this December, as the nation travels home, I am suggesting we as marketers watch with care as to some of these home truths that make a difference. Those truths that we can tap into to sell more soap, more bread, more beer.
Understand what ‘home’ means to your shopper and the role that your brand might play within this space and, critically, think outside the LSM box. Just because the home may be less than finished on the outside, there is a high chance that on the inside it will give your own suburban space a run for its money in the style stakes.
This December, as more and more living rooms become showrooms and sofas become ‘catwalks of cushions’, quite simply, if you’re not tapping in, you’re tapping out.
Happy holidays and happy watching!
* Unilever Institute
Mimi Nicklin (@MimiNicklin) followed her passion and experience in the consumer, retail and shopper space from regional roles in Europe and Asia, to South African shores in 2010. Having led global brands through the line for Procter & Gamble, and two of London and Hong Kong’s top agencies, her background gives her an international perspective to add to her depth of SA understanding. She serves as strategic director and a partner at 34 Group. Mimi contributes the monthly “The Sell” column concerning shopper marketing to MarkLives.