This document discusses 6 cultural drivers that are breaking down defenses against overeating: rogue food invading all spaces like homes, offices, and cars; a hyperactive culture where people feel constantly busy even if sedentary; the informalization of culture with fluid routines and less structured meals; these trends fuel snacking becoming ubiquitous replacing traditional meals. Weight Watchers harnessed this understanding of the toxic environment through cultural intelligence to shape a new strategy, extending their message and achieving their best PR results with 500% more editorial reach.
2. Cultural intelligence
Why we commissioned Flamingo
Cultural Intelligence
The PR Challenge:
•Achieve cut through new news to
support our new weight loss plan
from January
•Make Weight Watchers relevant,
current and desirable
•Ensure consumers choose Weight
Watchers
The Solution:
•Create engaging and ownable
content for media via a simple
effective formula:
Cultural Insights + New science
around Hedonics = New ‘ownable’
explanation and solution to obesity
3. Cultural intelligence
WHAT ARE THE KEY CHANGES IN OUR WORLD WHICH AFFECT OUR URGE TO EAT?
FROM PEOPLE TO ENVIRONMENT
FROM GUILT TO EMPOWERMENT
4. Cultural intelligenceCultural Intelligence Lens
THE CULTURAL LENS
8 universal and foundational themes
which shape people and culture across
the world. Helping us collect intelligence,
thinking and source expert partnerships.
5. Cultural intelligence6 drivers that are breaking down our defences
INFORMALISATION &
SNACKIFICATION
THE HAPPINESS
FAMINE
ROGUE FOOD
CITY-BESITYBOREDOM BUSTING
HYPERACTIVE CULTURE &
ENERGY CRISIS
8. Cultural intelligence
The number of kitchen-diners has risen by almost 50 per cent in the
past decade. One in three homes now features a kitchen-diner, and
one in five Britons plans to blend their separate living room and
cooking spaces into a single area.
Lloyds’ UK Home Insurance survey, 2012
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10. Cultural intelligenceStealth occupation of all of our spaces
US consumers eat almost 20% of meals in
the car (US culinary institute).
"Food" is one of the top 10 most used tags
on Tumblr.
Food has become a cultural
obsession, pervading all our spaces
and conversations.
12. Cultural intelligenceBusyness is the new currency
Technology is fuelling a world where
it’s almost impossible to disconnect
and zone out.
A culture of presenteeism. Status associated
with being busy.
INFO
72% check their smartphones every
morning with in an hour of waking up.
Of 1600 managers and professional
surveyed, 92% put in 50 or more
hours of work a week.
SOURCE: Harvard Business School
professor Leslie Perlow, Sleeping
With Your Smart Phone: How to Break
the 24/7 Habit and Change the Way
You Work.
13. Cultural intelligenceSedentary Britain
We are kidding ourselves.
We have more leisure time than ever.
People are spending 17 hours and 30
minutes each day at home. 20
minutes longer than in 2010.
UK IPA TouchPoints 4
64% say getting 30 mins of exercise a
day is uncommon.
Fatville
Whilst we talk about being busy as if
we are being extremely physically
active, we don’t realize just how slow
the ‘fast’ lane really is.
Fatville Report
We are less physically active than ever.
“
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14. Cultural intelligenceTiredness epidemic fuels eating
We are confusing mental exhaustion with
physical exertion.
Explosion of coffee shops on the High Street
and energy drinks on the market.
INFO
In 2008, John Lewis sold 15 per cent
fewer king-size beds than doubles. In
2010, the proportion has shifted
dramatically, now selling 34 per cent
more king-size than double beds.
Costa Coffee: sales in the past three
months were 20 per cent up on the
same period a year ago,
December 2013.
16. Cultural intelligenceFluid and arrythmic lives
The structures of traditional families is
rapidly changing.
Mobility and the increasing blend of
cultures means life is more informal
today, etiquette is relaxed, we have
fewer rituals.
Professor Dale Southerton,
Sociologist, Morgan Centre for the
Study of Interpersonal Relationships
We’re not synchronised with our loved
ones… 24 / 7 society means we have very
fragmented routines.
“
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17. Cultural intelligence
When the family does eat together, 40% start eating before
others arrive, 38% use mobile phones and 10% think it’s OK to
wear headphones.
Survey by Bisto 2011
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18. Cultural intelligenceFertile environment for snackification
Death of routine – eating is random,
haphazard and driven by urge rather
than timetable.
The traditional 3 meals a day evolves into a
more tapas-style way of eating and sharing
with friends and family.
Snacking will be so ubiquitous, the
term ‘snacking’ will cease to exist.
It will just be ‘eating’.
Dr Morgaine Gaye, Food
Futurologist
“
”INFO
The number of menu items in
restaurants listed as snacks jumped
nearly 170% between 2007 and 2010.
Items described as “mini” rose 400%
over the same period.
(Mintel)
19. Cultural intelligence
All of these trends shape our increasingly toxic environment
They break down our defences and make it harder to
make healthy choices.
Here’s how Weight Watchers harnessed this understanding…….
20. Cultural intelligence
How we harnessed this understanding to
maximum effect ….
Opening doors to key opinion formers
x 4 PR campaigns spanning 12 months +
21. Cultural intelligence
We’re living in a challenging environment today. One in which we
need to survive. We need to give people skills to do this.
We need to get the message out that your environment is
stacked against you.
Professor David Stensel
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26. Cultural intelligence
Stand out results:
Best ever PR results: Editorial reach +500% versus 2012 (formerly
most successful PR results)
Invited by Department of Health to brief their marketing team on our
strategy and approach
Approached by Professor Susan Jebb, University of Oxford and Chair
of the Government’s Public Health Responsibility Deal Food Network
to offer her support for the Slim Our Snacks campaign
Weight Watchers partnered with Flamingo, to map the way we live in this toxic environment, explore the key changes in our world and crucially how it affects our urge to eat.Fully explored were the internal drivers of over-eating.Less explored were the societal and environmental factors which make it harder for us to make healthy choices. .
Our Approach.Our cultural lens…….the foundational themes which shape people and culture across the world….No primary consumer research…….we were trying to understand how environmental, social and cultural structures and changes are shaping behaviour. This was not an investigation of attitudes, perceptions, intentions from an internal consumer motivation perspective….
Powerful drivers of over eating.Today we will focus on: - Rogue Food -- Hyper Active Culture - Informalisation
The spaces we live and work in are undergoing dramatic change and food has gone rogue within them.
The cellular structure of the house is disintegrating. Technology allows for every room to be a media room, work room, game room or reading room,The kitchen has become the emotional centre of the home, especially as it is being defined as a place where people can show their love for others.It means food is never far from our grasp.
As a counter-point to the lack of time spent together, and the fact we work longer hours, kitchens are in vogue with architects designing the future office spaces.Positive social influence however can also drive snacking behaviours.
Liminal spaces, TV entertainment, food porn: Food as cultural obsession pervading all our spaces and conversations.
Economic squeeze is putting the pressure on us to ‘do’ more than ever to feel secure in our jobs and family life.
British society has been undergoing a process of gradual informalisation in recent decades and is set to continue due to prevailing social and cultural trends.
The resultant breakdown of routines and rituals has provided a fertile environment for a snacking mentality and set of occasions (‘snackification’) which hold this lifestyle together.