Consumers Dig (for) Info

By Rachel Blatt

You can see the trend in supermarkets everywhere—moms in aisles probing deeper and deeper into product labels. Knowing where something comes from and what it’s about is increasingly important to consumers. And a new survey says people are now more than willing to do the detective work to figure it all out.

Weber Shandwick recently surveyed consumers and business execs in the U.S., U.K., China, and Brazil and found that 70% of respondents stay away from a product if they don’t like its parent company. What’s more, transparency has become a necessity. 56% hesitate to buy a product if they can’t find information about the corporation behind it. 

Though consumers and executives both agree that social and environmental responsibility are important talking points, consumers are also becoming quicker to point out the cognitive dissonances between what a brand says and what their parent corporation does.

A Fast Company story on the research singles out Kashi’s problems relating to its parent  Kellogg:  “One of the ingredients in Kellogg’s FiberPlus Berry Yogurt Crunch—the preservative BHT—gets a thumbs-down from Kashi’s Ingredient Decoder tool.” Can’t you just see your mom’s disapproving nod?

As customers, communities, and shareholders use new criteria to make their judgements, companies that are seen as irresponsible or creating products without purpose will get punished. And companies that get it right will get rewarded. Havas media documented that more than half of all consumers worldwide are prepared to reward responsible companies by choosing to buy their products—and that percentage keeps rising. 

Of course, this reveals a huge opportunity for brands to distinguish themselves. Only 28% of consumers worldwide think that today’s companies are working hard enough to solve our social and environmental challenges. 

How and where will businesses find responsible growth? Game Changers, an upcoming Wolff Olins report, looks at this issue from companies’ perspectives and highlights the key behaviors that are now shaping the future of business. 

Which high-growth companies are stepping up to distinguish themselves by being both commercially and socially minded?

What will happen to brands that don’t innovate to create new value?

More to come.  Stay tuned for Game Changers, coming soon to WolffOlins.com. 

image via “The Fox and The Grapes” Aesop’s Fables