State of the Consumer 2021 - Survey of the motivations that drive brand growth

2021

of the

SURVEY OF THE HUMAN MOTIVATIONS THAT DRIVE BRAND GROWTH

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BACKGROUND

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THE FOUNDATION: SAFETY

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BUILDING UPWARDS: LOVE AND BELONGING

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GETTING HIGHER: ESTEEM

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ALMOST THERE: AESTHETICS

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TOP OF THE PYRAMID: SELF-ACTUALIZATION

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HOW “HAPPINESS SEGMENTS” CAN HELP MARKETERS CONNECT

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

Over the last year and a half, people’s confidence in everything from their basic health and security needs to feelings of belonging and self-esteem has been thrown into complete disarray, which means that the way brands connect with consumers has undergone a massive transformation as well.

MATT BRITTON Suzy Founder and CEO

“Businesses have found ways to plug in and meet the needs of consumers. Now more than ever, we’ve officially crossed over the chasm from an advertisingbased society to a content-based society.

Brands need to flip the briefing process from thinking, ‘How do we push our unique selling proposition through an advertising-based environment?’ to ‘How do we add value to consumers’ lives?

What do consumers care about when they wake up at six o’clock in the morning?’”

For a long time, marketers trying to understand consumer demands have approximated consumers’ needs through demographic groups like race, gender, and age. While that can uncover trends, it doesn’t actually answer the questions: WHAT MOTIVATES PEOPLE? WHAT DRIVES PEOPLE TO DO WHAT THEY DO, OR BUY WHAT THEY BUY? STATE OF THE CONSUMER 2021 01

ULTIMATELY, WHAT NEEDS DO PEOPLE HAVE TO MEET IN ORDER TO BE HAPPY?

STATE OF THE CONSUMER 2021 01

To try and answer some of those questions, Suzy surveyed 1,000 Americans to get to the root of how they’re feeling.

Here are some of our biggest takeaways:

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Confidence in basic needs like health and job safety is better than we expected, but many are fearful of the Delta variant.

People generally feel secure in themselves and their family and romantic relationships, but feel disconnected from their broader communities.

3 The desire for recognition, freedom, and pursuing one’s passions haven’t gone away during the pandemic —they’ve just taken different forms.

There’s plenty that marketers can do to tailor their messages to address people’s needs, whether by speaking to a desire for community and belonging, or to an impulse for aesthetic self-expression.

It’s up to marketers to find out which of these consumers feel the most strongly about, and where your brand can help meet these needs. That’s where Suzy can help.

02 STATE OF THE CONSUMER 2021

Late summer 2021, we surveyed a group of 1,000 Americans that are directionally representative of U.S. consumers working from home and census-weighted across age, gender, ethnicity, and region. Through their responses, we began to paint a more nuanced picture of Americans’ state of mind based on the five main categories of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:

5. SELF-ACTUALIZATION

4. AESTHETICS

3. ESTEEM

2. LOVE AND BELONGING

1. SAFETY

The desire to reach one’s full potential.

The pursuit of beauty and creativity.

Feelings of respect, self-esteem, status, recognition and freedom.

The sense of friendship, intimacy, family, and connection.

Security of body, employment, resources, and health.

We then used machine learning to segment people based on which of these categories is the strongest motivating factor in their happiness. Segmenting people by what needs they’re most driven to meet instead of by demographic group helps marketers see where — and to whom — they can provide the most value. And there are opportunities every step of the way, even at the very base of the pyramid.

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THE FOUNDATION:

First, we took a look at the foundational need for safety. It’s exactly what it sounds like: the simple need to feel secure in the roof over one’s head and the ability to protect oneself from harm. It’s no shock that the pandemic put extra stress on those fundamental tenets of people’s needs. Health, safety, and job security were top of mind for many Americans, and two-thirds (66%) of respondents to our survey reported still actively thinking about their personal safety.

MATT BRITTON Suzy Founder and CEO

“How are safety needs really being delivered on by businesses and how are consumers feeling about their own personal safety? We’ve seen many business opportunities that have and will need to arise out of [people’s desire for personal safety]. For example, earlier in the year, a company called SimpliSafe announced a $130 million investment round. More consumers not only want to invest in the internal accouterments of their home but also want to protect their home and invest in home security, and platforms like SimpliSafe are delivering on this.”

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Despite all this, there’s hope on the horizon, especially as more Americans become vaccinated. That’s likely part of the reason why just over half (56%) of respondents said they felt in control of their health and wellness.

Broader market recovery is also having an impact on peoples’ confidence.

With new unemployment claims now at an 18-month low, about six in ten (61%) Americans said they were feeling secure in their jobs.

56%

of respondents said they felt in control of their health and wellness.

61%

of Americans said they were feeling secure in their jobs.

With optimism on the rise, it’s tempting to begin “back to normal” messaging — but marketers may want to hold their horses. After all, if just over half of Americans feel in control over their health, that means just under half don’t.

The Delta variant has especially fueled a resurgence in fears around health and safety: “The Delta variant is more contagious and worse than the other variants, so even though I have been vaccinated, there is a fear about getting it,” said one survey respondent.

BRAND OPPORTUNITY

CREATE MESSAGING THAT BALANCES CONFLICTING CONSUMERS' FEELINGS OF SECURITY.

Though the early-pandemic messaging around “these uncertain times” may be long expired, marketers can still choose messaging that speaks to the daily reality of people’s lives without being insensitive or too cliche.

BUILDING UPWARDS:

Up next is love and belonging, which encompasses everything from romantic and familial love to feelings of community and solidarity.

For some, these needs were met easily. The pandemic had people buckling down, moving back home, and spending more time with their families than ever before.

Here are some stats:

76%

Three-quarters (76%) of Americans say family is still an important part of their daily lives.

As for significant others, 63% said they were in love right now — though there are still some people enjoying being single, with an even higher number (71%) saying they’re happy with their romantic lives.

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63%

On the other hand, loneliness became even more prevalent outside of people’s immediate circles. People were forced to limit their interactions with even their closest friends, and the lack of social events made it hard to feel a sense of community with neighbors, co-workers, or members of associations and groups.

A year and a half out of practice and still facing regulations on social gatherings, it’s not surprising that 55% of people we surveyed said they do not feel a strong connection with their community or colleagues.

BRAND OPPORTUNITY

SUPPORT EXISTING COMMUNITIES AND FIND OPPORTUNITIES TO CREATE MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS.

Brands have an opportunity to help foster connections and build community strength. Or it can mean fostering a new community around a brand, product, or idea. Take Peloton, for example, which turned the solo activity of biking in your living room into a shared experience in which millions partake.

GETTING HIGHER:

Esteem is the desire people feel to be recognized and appreciated by the people in their lives. It’s also the desire to feel confident and secure in themself as a person.

The pandemic may have made the first half of that harder to achieve, but it did provide a lot of time for self-reflection — and for many of the people we surveyed, it seems that time was put to use.

67% 64%

Two-thirds (67%) said they felt good about themselves and the person they’ve become.

Just under that (64%) said they felt confident in general.

5% Only 5% of people said they don’t feel good about who they’ve become.

“I am most proud of all of the situations that I have gotten through in the past few years,” one survey respondent said. “I am proud of my strength and resiliency and that I stuck through it and helped myself as well as those around me.”

That confidence also leads to more feelings of freedom, with 65% of people saying they feel like they’re able to make the decisions they want to.

MATT BRITTON Suzy Founder and CEO

“With a lot of consumers, freedom equals financial freedom, and the ability to be able to buy what they want, go where they want, live the life they want to live. For other consumers, it means not working — we’ve heard about The Great Resignation and how more and more consumers right now are really rethinking their career choices, and you can't do that without [feeling a sense of] freedom.”

BRAND OPPORTUNITY

BRANDS TRYING TO REACH CONSUMERS AT THIS STAGE CAN FOSTER CONFIDENCE IN A LOT OF DIFFERENT WAYS, FROM EMPOWERING PEOPLE TO FEEL GOOD IN THEIR SKIN BY SHOWCASING PEOPLE WHO’VE ALREADY GONE THROUGH THAT JOURNEY TO INSPIRING BOLD DECISION-MAKING THROUGH DARING DESIGN.

And they don’t have to stop at helping consumers build confidence — they can also celebrate people who already feel confident by giving people the tools to show off their newfound sense of self.

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ALMOST THERE:

This tier of the pyramid deals with a desire to see and appreciate beauty, as well as to invest in one’s personal appearance. According to the Hierarchy of Needs, this often meant connecting with the beauty of nature. But in modern daily life, this can take other forms — for example, someone can pursue aesthetics through the clothes they wear or the way they decorate their homes.

BRAND OPPORTUNITY

BRANDS THAT PRIORITIZE AESTHETICS WILL STAND OUT. DON'T DISCOUNT THE IMPORTANCE OF INSPIRING PRODUCT AND CAMPAIGN DESIGN.

People opted for comfortable sweatpants over fashion statements, and apparel sales plummeted. Our survey results show that:

56% 43% 55% 10 STATE OF THE CONSUMER 2021

More than half of Americans (56%) said they didn’t feel like they were expressing themselves through their clothing.

43% of women said the pandemic negatively impacted how attractive they feel, and 26% of men said the same.

On the flip side, 55% of people said they did feel like their styles were being represented in their homes.

DIY home decor and renovation also saw a huge surge in popularity during the pandemic. Adapting messaging to appeal to aesthetic desires in a post-pandemic world can be as simple as reevaluating where your brand fits in a home. Even outside these categories, all brands have products that can act as outlets for creativity, beauty, and self-expression.

MATT BRITTON Suzy Founder and CEO

“As consumers put their personal safety front and center, they've also put their home and their own personal spaces front and center. And they’ve spent more money than ever before, not only on homes but on furnishings and Pelotons and a variety of different types of technology and furnishings and accouterments within the home.”

TOP OF THE PYRAMID:

If people feel secure in all other steps of the pyramid, they begin to be motivated by the desire to grow, rather than the need to fill a hole in their life. This is the top tier of Maslow’s hierarchy: self-actualization. It’s a state of constant personal growth driven by the desire to be the best they can be, whether through mastering a hobby, seeking new experiences, or using their talents to help others.

For many, the pandemic induced a state of suspended action: People had to put their passions on pause to deal with the loss of basic needs at the bottom of the pyramid, like health or community.

But while the pandemic may have disrupted many people’s path to the top of the pyramid, it also gave people time to try new things and find new ways to achieve self-actualization, whether that be finding new passions, learning new things, or developing new goals.

62%

62% of people we surveyed said they had goals they were working towards.

57% 12 STATE OF THE CONSUMER 2021

70%

70% said they had topics they were continuing to learn about.

As the pace of life picks back up again, however, 57% of people said they wished they had more time to actively pursue their passions and interests.

As any “master” of a craft will tell you, however, there’s never such a thing as true mastery. There’s always room for improvement, and when people do reach their goals, they’ll simply make new ones.

That’s why this stage of the pyramid represents plenty of opportunities for brands to provide value, whether by supporting people’s progress towards their goals or saving someone time in other parts of their life so they have more opportunity to work on themselves. For people at this stage, the best messaging focuses on how a brand or product will help them live up to their fullest potential.

MATT BRITTON Suzy Founder and CEO

“When left to their own devices, people have had to learn how to do things on their own and they've gone to platforms like YouTube. I think the [most successful] brands have used the pandemic as an opportunity to push out content to make consumers’ lives better, to teach them, and to empower them.

This DIY revolution is just getting started and I think more and more consumers now have been conditioned to try to figure out how to do things on their own.”

HOW “HAPPINESS SEGMENTS” CAN HELP

With this framework in mind, there’s still more insight to glean. Now that we know how marketers can provide value to people at each step of the pyramid, it’s a matter of finding out which step consumers are on.

Suzy used machine learning algorithms to group people into “happiness segments” based on which factors most strongly affect their happiness.

The four major categories are:

1 2

Happiness based on security.

Happiness based on community.

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Happiness based on recognition.

Happiness based on freedom.

Importantly, each category isn’t mutually exclusive — they only measure which motivations are the strongest driving force behind overall happiness. For example, someone that finds happiness based on security still derives happiness from interacting with their community, but security is a larger motivating factor in that happiness.

BRAND OPPORTUNITY

USE SEGMENTATION STUDIES TO UNDERSTAND THE UNIQUE DRIVERS OF TARGET AUDIENCES, AND CREATE COMPELLING MARKETING CONTENT.

Being able to understand consumers from this angle gives marketers a much better picture of their desires and values than demographic data can. Segmenting people by experiences that bring them happiness instead allows marketers to think about consumers as holistic people with goals, fears, and needs — and to truly understand what drives them to make the decisions they do. Ultimately, this helps marketers form a more authentic relationship based not just on selling a product but providing real value to the consumer.

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Americans are feeling hopeful, but not back to “normal” just yet.

While just over half of the people we surveyed felt secure in their health and jobs, that still leaves a solid chunk of people not feeling that way. Jumping straight into “back to normal” messaging can seem insensitive, and brands miss out on the chance to serve the needs of consumers that are still concerned about their health and safety.

Building community is an area of opportunity.

Though the pandemic may have helped people connect with more intimate relationships like family and significant others, looser community ties like neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces suffered during social distancing. As people begin the process of rebuilding those links, there’s a lot of action brands can take to help spark those connections.

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Loftier desires like freedom, self-expression, and finding one’s potential look different now.

The pandemic was a time of intense self-reflection for a lot of people. Some are emerging more confident in themselves than ever before, while others feel lost about their sense of purpose in life. Whether helping people discover who they are or helping them become who they want to be, there’s plenty of opportunities for marketers to step in — it’s only a matter of figuring out where people are in their journey, which Suzy’s happiness segments can help with.

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