Consumer Power

Who exercise 'consumer power'? Do you recall that at the turn of the year I wrote about Consuming Passions in my monthly column? That article warned PR practitioners to think about who wields consumer power, and gave some clues of who in our society does what to express their ire against organisations which failed to live up to expectation.

A few days ago I addressed a local authority's senior management group. One of the questions put to me in the Q&A was are expectations rising? 'You bet!' was my response. It may be frustrating but there it is.

So, in the table below, I've profiled just who it is that does what, when it comes to consumer activism from a study done last year for the National Consumer Council among a nationally representative sample of nearly 2,000 people, interviewed face-to-face.

Some 13% of the British adult population say they've boycotted a product and/or organisation in the past 12 months. That represents some five million people who have 'voted with their feet', and those organisations, local authorities, companies, etc., won't even know it happened. Sceptics often ask me if measures of public opinion can show that having a good image causes more people to buy the company's products. It's a tough brief, and sometimes we can, and sometimes not, but we can certainly find those who for nearly any company, brand or service who are so mad at it for one reason or another that they have turned their back on them to show in the best way they know how that they disapprove of the company's actions.

These tend more to be men than women, despite most of the shopping being done, still, by women do. As the column under 'boycott' shows, they are also much more likely to be in the relatively affluent AB social class, when four in ten say they've gone out of their way to bypass companies they don't approve of. They are also more likely to be in the 35-54 year old group, working full time, earning over 16330,000. Which profile are you targeting by the way?

Consumer Activists' Profiles (5+ in past 12 months)

Base: 1,957 adults 15+, interviewed face-to-face 7-13 February 2002, 198 sampling points

Key to abbreviations:

What else does the table tell us? That 'consumer activists', who have done five or more of these things in the past year are more likely to be older, middle-class, work full time, and yes, earn over 16330,000. They are also more likely to be intending Tory or Lib Dem voters, and less likely to be non-voters or 'don't knows'. People who've written to or telephoned their local council to complain are also likely to be middle class, and, again, among the over 16330,000 income level.

Whatever your job, you are there to advise your boss, client, company or NGO about how to deal with the awkward customer, the whiner, the 'green ink' letter writer. You have to take them seriously, and now that you know they are more likely to be middle-class and affluent, just the kind of person you'd like to be your customer and to hold you in esteem, maybe you'll take them just a little bit more seriously than you did before reading who they are, and what they do!

This article was first published in Profile magazine in May 2003.

Sir Robert Worcester is Chairman of MORI