13 macro environment

Political

Environmental

Aims have been made by pressure groups to encourage governments to reduce excess waste. For example, the government funded group, Zero Waste Scotland, said that “that consumers should refuse all needless singleuse items” (Allardyce, 2019). This interest in reducing waste has gained more traction following shows such as Blue Planet which shone a light on the catastrophic impact plastic had on the marine environment. The Extinction Rebellion campaign gained media attention in 2019 and helped highlight the critical need for a global sustainability shift. The aim of the group is to get governments to become more transparent in regards to the “climate and ecological emergency” (The Guardian, 2019). This shows that the general population are becoming more enlightened regarding the needs of the environment.

This interest in sustainability is also filtering across to large conglomerates. Unilever aimed to half “its use of virgin plastic, by reducing its absolute use of plastic packaging by more than 100,000 tonnes and accelerating its use of recycled plastic” (Unilever, 2019). This step towards a circular economy is a move that many businesses will be looking to make in order to reduce their environmental impact.

There has been an increase in levels of spirituality recently among millennials, Gen Xers and Gen Z. Rather than becoming involved in traditional forms of religion they are now “embracing more spiritual beliefs and practices like tarot, astrology, meditation, energy healing and crystals” (Roy, 2019). This shows that society is looking to find new ways to bring them peace in their increasingly more hectic lives.

Also, research shows that “a total of 12.8 million working days were lost because of work-related stress, anxiety and depression in 2018-19” (Palmer, 2019). This shows that it is becoming more difficult for people to find a healthy work-life balance and that increased pressure at work is having a very detrimental effect on people’s mental health. This will impact businesses as consumers will desire products enhance their mental wellbeing. They will also require products that are easily accessible as they have less time to spend searching for the right products.

Technological

3D printing technology is a hot topic at the moment, particularly in manufacturing. For instance, it can help companies to “become more responsive to customer demands” (Oliver, 2019) through the ability to personalise products to customer needs; enable localisation of production, thus shortening supply chains, reducing labour costs and limiting carbon emissions; and allow for batch production to minimise waste.

Augmented reality is equally as topical. The immersive technology has several applications from a brand perspective including Experiential Marketing, which is becoming very important as businesses are discovering that “superior brand experience is the key to creating longterm relationships” (Fade, 2019). AR is also driving sales through “interfaces that allow customers to try products prior to purchasing”. The technology has manufacturing benefits as AR can be used “to design, build and test products”, thus saving costs and streamlining the design process.

The interlinking trends that emerged across elements of the PESTEL analysis can be defined as sustainability, in relation to minimisation of waste, reduction of singleuse plastics and increased environmental transparency; wellness and self-care, in terms of mental health awareness and the increase in spirituality; and new consumer expectations, based on wanting increased personalisation, efficiency and engaging experiences.