Nick Wolaver, United States

July 27 marks an important milestone in the global sports scene. Two years from Tuesday, the Games of the XXX^th Olympiad will officially open at London’s gleaming new Olympic Stadium.

Londoners won’t be waiting for the 27^th to celebrate as citywide “London 2012 Open Weekend 2010” events will take place for three days starting July 23. 

The late July milestone is also noteworthy to global consumer marketing, as the International Olympic Committee’s TOP sponsors – including powerhouse brands like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Panasonic and Visa – are already deeply engrossed in their pre-Games planning in anticipation of 2012 sponsorship activation in the months leading to and during London’s Games.

One recent Marketing Week report delves into the two-year Olympic planning underway at GE (disclosure: an Edelman client) and the company’s plans to engage U.K. consumers.

Almost a decade of planning goes into hosting each Olympiad, starting with a vigorous 2-3 year bid city process, followed by a seven-year cycle of planning, prep, practice and finalizing Games plans by the local organizing committee. The London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG, an Edelman client) is not quite to the bell lap in its Olympic preparations.

Savvy marketers who seek to capitalize on the Olympic experience either directly or indirectly are smart to initiate the planning process as far in advance as possible, even looking at a multiple-Olympiad approach to include London as well as future host cities Sochi, Russia – the 2014 Winter Olympic site – and Rio de Janiero 2016.

The 2018 and 2020 host cities remain to be determined, yet Dow Chemical cited these two Olympic Games as part of their 10-year plan as the IOC’s newest TOP sponsor, announced July 16 in New York.

Brands need not be multi-billion-dollar corporations to create an appropriate Olympic-related campaign.

For instance, years ahead of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games, Canada’s renowned Rick Hansen Foundation realized the importance of creating a more robust online presence to showcase their global reach. The Foundation, named for and led by Canadian national hero and Paralympic gold medalist Rick Hansen, engaged Edelman to create a completely new website –infused with social media applications not previously leveraged by the Foundation – all in anticipation of a pre-Games launch in early 2010 and the organization’s 25^th Anniversary.

Even the most scrappy ambush marketing tied to the Games – such as Nike’s famous billboard series or Samsung’s successful efforts at Atlanta – are the result of months or years of advance planning. Social media considerations alone will continue to evolve with regards to Olympic engagement.

The bottom line: Like any Olympic athlete in training for their one moment in time, marketers considering engagement tied to global sports events should take a long-term planning approach to Olympic or other sponsorship engagement.

Photo via London 2012/LOCOG

Photograph: Emilio Morenatti/APAna Herrero, Spain

Spain became red. Red like the Spanish flag, like the color of millions of hearts beating as one as a their dreams turned into reality. Red like the color of passion, courage, initiative and friendship.

Finally, Spain fulfilled the so-long awaited dream of becoming champions of the World. The best team of the best country made this possible through team work, creativity and passion. Yesterday, everybody in Spain felt the relevance of such values as the players were saluting all the fans in Madrid. Of course, the celebration lasted more than three hours and allowed the team to show the World cup to its country.

It doesn’t matter if you love football or if you are supporting Real Madrid or F.C. Barcelona. It doesn’t matter if you are from Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla or País Vasco... The good thing, the important thing is how a country becomes just one. SPAIN, one, big, winner, joined... I am very happy of being part of this historic moment for this country and, overall I am very proud of being Spanish.

Regarding consumerism in Spain, a survey by the Holland bank ABN Amro called “Soccernomics 2010” says that the impact of winning the World Cup among the country economy will be the growth of about 0.7% of the GDP.  Spanish politicians say this issue has helped to recover the optimism and trust again in the government and the things they are doing. What is true is that the winning euphoria became a pike in the economy the last days. The industries that has experimented the growth most has been food & beverage (quick services restaurants – BK, Telepizza, etc.- snacks, beverages...)

Read the full survey here.

CAMPEONES, CAMPEONES....

Former Friends star Lisa Kudrow sums it up best when she recently said, “it makes me cringe that despicable has become the biggest craze in entertainment." And she’s not talking about the fact that a Friends reunion still isn’t in the works. She’s talking about the latest and greatest out of New Jersey –MTV’s Jersey Shore cast. With personalities like Snookie and “the situation” getting paid thousands of dollars for guest appearances how do we go about steering our clients towards a new class of influencers that bring a truly different shift in perception to the table?

And speaking of tables who would have thought an outraged NJ housewife’s famous table flip would have caused so much hype? I’ve been involved with many programs focused on moms but do we need to be giving some thought to taking our mom target to the next level –housewives? When the Real Housewives of New Jersey show on Bravo debuted, I was interested to see how people’s perceptions of being from NJ would evolve. Growing up in NJ myself (for those of you who really know me fairly close to where they filmed the show J) I wouldn’t say I can relate to the NJ housewives cast; yet the housewife phenomenon is one that companies are trying to relate to more and more.

Kodak brought on New York Housewife Jill Zarin as a spokesperson for Kodak Gallery. Rationale for bringing her on probably seemed like a no brainer to Kodak ---she appeals to moms, she has a good reputation (no skeletons thus far), the housewives show on Bravo is huge so that means great publicity for Kodak, right? Well, not exactly. On a recent episode of Season 2 of The Real Housewives of New York, Jill is criticized by fellow housewife Ramona for working with Kodak at a Kodak-sponsored party. Points that Kodak would do anything to avoid were thrown out by Ramona in her quest to question Jill’s decision to work with a company that has “falling stocks” and is “a little antiquated.”

This example is one of many that prove we need to keep thinking ---does a product’s moment of fame outweigh the risks?  If you’re doing your job right, you’re taking any potential risks into account before signing onto a product placement opportunity or brand ambassador. But as Kodak would now agree, risk free might not exist anymore – often because of reasons that aren’t always in someone’s control (I think you all know who I’m talking about here).  

At the end of the day would you call Mike, “the situation,” a good brand ambassador? Probably not. But do our clients want to be in on the Jersey Shore situation? Surprisingly so. I was in a brainstorm with one of our more conservative brands and the excitement was incredible when the idea of seeing “the situation” with their  product came from the head client herself. A tactic we’d be hesitant to recommend was now the hero idea out of the brainstorm.

Some clients may want to look into the idea of product placement to get in on the action vs. engaging a brand ambassador, especially as paid spokespeople are getting harder and harder to book.  So when we all starting 2011 planning for our clients let’s keep in mind what will put your brand in a situation for the best. Keep an open mind and let’s face it, despicable may not be such a bad thing.

Last Spring, I bought a house because of a blog. The blog to blame is Catskill Farms; the author, a builder named Chuck. And the very sweet (albeit slightly expensive) story started like this:

If I had my way, I’d move far, far away

Where the roads will only fit one car

Air so clean you can see real far

From the top of a little hill in the country…

I wasn’t in the market for a house at all, but apparently was very much in the market for an escape. I had punched in ‘Catskills + getaway’ only to have Google surface Sullivan County’s best kept secret. The Catskill Farms site and owner’s blog were peddling “good homes with soul”—designs true to turn-of-the-century regional architecture with wood-burning fireplaces, wide plank floors and huge porches.

Chuck, a New York City expat who escaped to the Catskills in search of the good life, was religious in his blogging. He opined on the simple life, his ruminations interspersed with snapshots of wife Lisa, baby Lucas and Black Labrador Jake on lazy country Sundays—and, of course, countless photos of charming, vintage-meets-modern cottages that I could call my very own.

I read the blog daily, as Chuck spun stories of how a Catskills cottage would change my life: badminton tourneys with my Catskill Farms neighbors (never mind my lack of hand-eye coordination!); a Farmer’s Market with local, farm-fresh goods (I don’t cook!); tractor parades (hillbilly chic!); David Cross was also a homeowner (I was destined to be friends with Tobias Funke!)—I had to have this house.

Chuck was part showman, and part salesman, but mostly, he was a storyteller. He was authentic, relatable and witty (best when he blogged post-Scotch on Saturday evenings). With each post, Chuck penned chapters of a life, or at least a lifestyle, that I envisioned for myself. Through his blog, he brought to life a real estate offering through anecdotes and images that together comprised not a portrait of a piece of property, but rather an entire existence.

Yes, I bought a house based on a blog. It was a damn good story, I swear.

At the heart of our business we too are storytellers, commissioned to craft narratives on behalf of brands and businesses to engage and inspire consumers.

Our modern age has given rise to countless vehicles through which to tell our stories – from big budget branded entertainment platforms to mini tales told in tweets. Lured by the influence and reach of channels, it’s easy to focus solely on pulling the levers—guided by the desire to create and distribute content, any content—and in doing so, sacrifice the story itself.

Chuck’s blog reminds me of the importance of voice and narrative – authenticity, honesty, and sometimes a dash of bravado. Let us continue to challenge ourselves to be so original and bold in our storytelling, that it becomes the means to action. Every brand has a story – how will you tell it?  

Now that the worst of what has been officially entered into the AP stylebook as the "Great Recession" is in the rear view mirror, is it safe for marketers to resume pre-downturn programming? What if anything has changed?

Judging by recent headlines (and a couple of short targeted shopping excursions in London and New York), it's clear that consumer spending is coming back and a sustainable recovery is underway. While many marketers seem to counting on consumer mindsets and spending habits snapping back to the good old days of two years ago, history and several initial trend lines suggest a more fundamental resetting of consumer behavior – one where control will play a central role.  

After the Great Depression, the economy experienced one of the greatest growth spurts in U.S. history when the GDP nearly doubled in size between 1940 and 1945. And yet, the experience of living through the Depression impacted consumer behavior for decades to come. My grandmother, who always likes to talk, still rushes me off the phone to save on the phone bill, even after a review of rollover minutes. Aluminum foil is often reused - why waste?

While what we just experienced was not on the same scale as the Great Depression, it has been the longest recession on record, the unemployment rate has been the highest since the early 80s and despite the rally since last March, we haven't seen so much of our wealth evaporate since the 30s. It was enough to give us pause, shake our confidence (consumer confidence had hit an all-time low) and to have a more than fleeting impact on how and why we consume.  

We're already seeing short term impacts which include a sharp rise in our household savings rate, which had been declining since 1975 through multiple recessions and corrections, as well as a boost for house brands. According to a recent NPD study, house brands make up 24% of all food and beverages served in U.S. homes, up from 18% in 1999. Once a staple of lower-income households, they now enjoy roughly equal penetration among demographic segments. In IRI’s December 2009 Economic Survey, 54% of consumers indicated they were purchasing store brand products more often and 82% of those said they will continue to do so.

The longer term impacts are more subtle. Consumers across demographic, psychographic and commongraphics are, to varying degrees, recalibrating what constitutes value and importantly, how individual purchases can help them take control of what matters. In-control consumption does not necessarily mean buying less –  it means we’re buying differently. The decision-making process is shifting as we’re look for ways to reclaim control of our finances, environment and future.

Maslow 2.0

The fundamentals of Abraham Maslow’s theory on the “hierarchy of needs” created shortly after the Great Depression  provide a helpful lens through which to look at the current consumer reprioritization exercise.

As you might remember from Psych 101, the base level of the pyramid is associated with physiological and safety needs, while the upper levels are associated with social/belongingness, esteem and self-actualization needs.  According to Maslow, the higher needs in this hierarchy only come into focus when the lower needs in the pyramid are satisfied, so consumers worried about their job security may not be as concerned with self actualizing. When brand marketers are thinking about differentiators and “reasons to believe”, functional and emotional needs should be at the core of the answer. While the base level of needs e.g. breathing, will clearly never go out of style, it’s interesting to see how some of our necessities have shifted over time.

For instance, the Pew Research Center recently found that from the early 1970s to 2006, the proportion of Americans who considered air conditioning or dishwashers a “necessity” rose steadily, but in 2009 it dropped sharply. On the flip side, you can only imagine what the numbers would be for broadband internet access and iPhones  (and in my case Honest Tea and New Balance running shoes). Even the young Alaskan couple who moved “off the grid” to a Mongolian Yurt in the coastal town of Seldovia with no running water, shower, bath or a working toilet, has broadband.

The fundamental reset is in how consumers are thinking about what they can control at each point in the pyramid and how they are thinking about “spending." Our goodpurpose study found that 83 percent of people are willing to change consumption habits if it can help make the world a better place to live, illustrating the trend away from traditional status markers like big houses and toward identification with social purpose brands.

American Express is doing a good job of adapting to the new consumer mindset by offering features that help cardholders control spending, for example by allowing consumers to pay for groceries with reward points and imposing spending limits on kids with supplemental cards. In addition, they just announced the return of the Members Project – designed to “empower everyone to take small steps to make a big difference” via a partnership with TakePart, a content-driven social action network. The aim of the Members Project is to provide tools and resources to support causes people care about on the higher end of the pyramid – and empower more people to be successful at making a difference. 

The Brita FilterForGood program (client) is another good example - combining savings associated with the most basic of all needs, clean drinking water, with the desire to preserve the planet. The program has empowered consumers, saved more than 180 million bottles and driven double-digit growth for Brita. In both cases, a critical first step towards action is understanding one’s ability to have an impact.

The question we should be asking ourselves as we dive in with post Great Recession programming in the new age of public engagement: how do we help our clients empower their stakeholders to take control of key needs in the hierarchy - to help them feel secure, express themselves, take action, drive sales and in some cases make the world a better place.

Blair Garson, United States

Recently, we have talked about shifting from circulation to reverberation.  Being successful in terms of circulation is a simple concept. Get coverage in a national magazine which has a circulation of let’s say 3 million readers. Multiply that by 4 (industry standard, of course) to get your 12 million glorious media impressions. Normally that would be a huge success but with the ever-changing media landscape, simply placing our product isn’t enough anymore. We need to hear the echoes of that placement.

So how do we entice consumers to be vocal about our clients and share our messages? I’ve pondered this for awhile, checked Facebook status updates, tweets and blogs and noticed people seem to speak up when there’s an opportunity to shine the spotlight on them, even if only for a moment.

A couple months ago, I logged onto to Facebook and saw a recurring theme among my friends’ status updates. They were calling out colors – blue, black, nude, teal, red, paisley. Perplexed, I did a quick Google search and learned that in an effort to raise awareness for breast cancer, women were invited to post their bra color in their Facebook status. No organization or brand was attached to this effort and no one really knows where it originated. It is difficult to measure if this little viral “flash” raised awareness for breast cancer, but it did get a ton of people talking and participating in one unified conversation...about the color of their undergarments.

Approximately a month later, I signed onto to Facebook again and noticed I had somehow become “friends” with Sarah Jessica Parker and Bradley Cooper overnight. Soon after, and much to my disappointment, I realized it was just the latest Facebook trend – Celebrity Doppelganger Week. The concept was to replace your profile picture with a celebrity who you think you resemble.

Over the next several days, more and more profile pictures began changing. The conversation moved from Facebook, to the blogosphere, to lunch conversations at the office (you know who you are!) and even into mainstream media (Time Huffington Post, ABC News, Daily News, etc). 

With little encouragement, these two Facebook trends caught fire. It seems to me that their popularity stemmed from the narcissism of consumers and their desire for attention. So how can we use this to our advantage and promote our brands?

I recently saw a campaign for Pantene that is centered on finding the world’s first reality hair star.  The brand plans to put their products to the test in what they’re calling the “first reality hair advertisement.” While it remains to be seen if this new campaign will be a success, I think it’s a step in an interesting direction.  Instead of calling on an expert or celebrity to promote their brand, Pantene is shining the spotlight directly on the consumer making their thoughts, opinions, and experience with the product paramount.

Consumers like a small dose of attention and are eager to be at the center of the conversation. So instead of using them solely as a vehicle to push out our messages, maybe it’s time we advise our clients to shift the focus of their campaigns and make them more about the consumers. If we give them the soapbox to stand on, maybe just maybe, we’ll hear echoes.  

Jeanette Morrow, Matthew Clay and Molli Sullivan on behalf of Edelman 8095

Marriage, in America, is an institution in decline. And while the 50% divorce rate has persisted for over two decades, the youngest among us who are committing are the one’s who are most driving the seismic evolution of how love and relationships are changing the ways we identify ourselves by choosing to commit and not commit for vastly different reasons than generations before them.  

Currently, 75% of Millennials have never married, compared with just 43% of Boomers when they were the same age (Pew Research, 2010). This statistic stuck out as the most drastic difference between millennials and previous generations within Pew’s all-encompassing analysis of the generation in this February’s report titled Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change. This in connection with Elizabeth Gilbert’s recently released and beautifully penned self examination on what marriage, monogamy and commitment mean to her and society, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage, and we knew times were for sure changing. Because the statistic above is just the tip of the iceberg when discussing the changes this generation is enacting on the definitions of modern love.  Sexuality, feminism, human rights, work place equality, education and a new take on child rearing are all new considerations in what marriage and monogamy means to us.

Why should you – the marketer – care? Because whether it’s 2010 or 1910 a fundamental value has not changed: love invents and defines us. We develop our 15 year plans by it, we group ourselves off in social identities through it and frankly it’s the social safety net each and every one of us cocoons to feel that we belong somewhere.  We MUST become literate in these new sensitivities and identity patterns if we want to become relevant within modern America as the standard narrative of a “traditional” family, love and marriage aspirations have evolved - and thus so must you.   

On that note, meet your love literacy tour guides for the generation:

Jeanette, Matthew and Molli. One’s married and surprised she has to justify her decision to wed to her own generation, one is gay and finds it hard to separate love from politics and the other is single and not too eager to mingle, just yet. Each has penned a narrative of what love and relationships mean for them and through their unique lens, each captures a corner of how modern love in America is affecting the most influential generation, to-date:

Jeanette Morrow, Atlanta: 

Marriage is…

Matthew Clay, Chicago:

Take me out of the game, coach!

It’s hard for me to write a POV on modern love and relationships without immediately contextualizing that I’m an openly gay man.  In fact, I’ve written and re-written this essay 4 times in the past 2 hours and it feels misleading not to outright claim it as a pivotal source from where my commentary flows– which is in of itself a stark talking point, no?  I’ve been out as a gay man for almost 9 years now and I feel like I just need to retire from the relationship conversation – take me out of the game coach! I’m so tired of the discussion of my “right” to share the same matrimonial air as “heterosexual” couples that I can’t even feign interest in the topic anymore.  You could stick Sarah Palin up with an NRA sash around her waist proposing to shoot-to-kill any LGBT couple that even holds hands in a dark alley and I would likely change the channel to the Food Network and pretend I can eat whatever Paula Deen is cooking. But it’s more than just the surgeon-like dissection into an insanely private and intimate part of someone’s life – one in which everyone feels the hubris to weigh in on – that has me turned off, it’s also traditional marriage constructs in general.   My proclamation to the world, whether you’re LGBT, straight or label-less: Find your own partnership model.

I just kept finding myself getting exacerbated over the right-to-marriage fight and realized I was fighting for something that a) was inherently used to discriminate against me and put me down and b) was over a traditional construct that I found ridiculous.   That second part is important to elaborate on – the ridiculousness of traditional marriage constructs.  We in America are obsessed with finding a partner – so much so that living a life without one (even if you haven’t found that person by age 35 or 40) is silently, yet resoundingly, disapproved.  This is a trend I feel most palpably now as I’m 2 ½ years post-college.  First comes a college degree, and then comes marriage – that’s how things roll, right?  Many couples don’t marry due to this kind of life-checklist inertia but a lot do.  This tied together with the emphatic, Disneyesque, narrative we place on someone “completing” us and becoming a “soul mate” and I can barely find the air to press the eject button.   Apologies for the direct critique, but these two trends noticed within the heavy context that myself, and LGBT Americans like me, are kept out of this institution; an institution that so many people use as a litmus test for overall life happiness and success make me feel set up to fail.  But fail at what? I’m not so sure I know anymore.

In so many ways being out, young and LGBT in modern America has been such a gift.  I bet I’ve internally scrutinized way more about who I am and what I need in a lifelong relationship – because lets face it, I don’t have a choice but to think about it – that I’ve come to terms with the definitions of the type of person I really need in my romantic life to be happy ten times more than the average person.  So just take me out of the marriage game, coach, because I’m sick of thinking about - and fighting for - it.   For when I do partner and spend my life with a man, it will be within a context that is made for me; one that has been hard won and without approval needed.

Molli Sullivan, Silicon Valley:

Not on my “to-do” list

My whole life, everyone has compared me to my mom. “Olivia Jr.” or “The Little Clone,” they would say.  We look exactly alike, have the same mannerisms, same laugh, same voice. Being compared to my mother is an honor, but in reality our differences are as numbered as our similarities.

My mom, a Boomer:

Second-generation Mexican-American, practicing Catholic, married my dad when she was 19 and he was 22. They immediately had two babies. She skipped college (although she graduated at the top of her class) and stayed at home while my dad ran his small business (oh, the American Dream!). They quickly bought a house with a huge backyard and two-car garage. Ten years later, she had my sister, and then three years later there was me. In total, she had four kids by age 33, and last year my parents celebrated their 40^th wedding anniversary.

OK, now let’s put this in perspective:

Me, a Millennial: Graduated early from high school, went straight to college. After two years, left to explore the world and pursued my passion by dancing professionally. Lived on my own, then with friends. Soaked up life with no responsibilities to anyone but myself. Returned to college, graduated, dabbled in jobs off my “beaten path,” then landed an awesome job (Edelman). Don’t go to church but embrace the idea that we are all completely connected. Oh yeah, and I’m 27 and there’s not an engagement ring, let alone baby, in sight. And this is by choice. And I’m really happy.

Let’s face it, my parents are the exception, not the rule. And in today’s day and age, their type of relationship isn’t even the most desired. Millennials want freedom and experiences, myself included, and marriage isn’t always conducive to those ideals. Moreover, the infamous “50% of marriages end in failure” statistic doesn’t exactly encourage our generation to jump into anything. A quick fix – if you never get married, you never get divorced, right? But is that really the solution? Maybe for some.

Do I want to get married? Sure, but only if I find the right person. I don’t need the “American Dream” that my parents had – I’m redefining what that dream looks like, and honestly marriage isn’t necessarily a component. A marriage will only work for me if I meet someone who shares the same values as me, is my best friend and supporter, but isn’t afraid of an independent woman (cue Destiny’s Child). I’m not looking for perfection, I don’t even believe in that. I’m just not willing to settle in order to check marriage of my “to do” list.

And seriously, what’s the hurry? As the famous author Nora Zeale Hurston said, "Marriage will only widen my hips and shorten my life.”



A friend of mine recently went to Brazil, and in an effort to keep her bags light, decided that if she came across something she liked, a memento from her trip, she would take note and buy it online. It just made sense to her. While I completely understand her point of view, traveling to foreign countries and shopping their cities for items that help put them on the map (like the Brazilian bikini for instance), was a luxury that once gave consumers status.  But, now with the Internet, she didn't need to purchase anything authentic while on the beaches of Rio.  With a quick Google (or Bing) search, my friend could purchase her item online and have it waiting for her when she got home. Her friends would never know the difference.

Now I understand her desire for convenience but, admittedly so, she (like me) is a born consumer. I know what I want, how to find it and I am completely aware of the socio-cultural implications embedded in owning certain items. And, thanks to the World Wide Web, all this has been made possible with the click of a button. The Internet has made consumers more effective, efficient and determined shoppers, and with that has taken away the delight of “the purchase!” The pleasure of holding a new, coveted item in your hands!

It's a heartbreaking realization to consider that the thrill of making a purchase in a foreign country to immortalize one's trip and make the experience unforgettable could be over.  I remember the exhilaration I felt when I purchased a wool coat in Paris at the Galeries Lafayette in the middle of July! It made no sense, but I did it, because I knew I may never have that chance again! So much has changed in just a few years.

When I truly mull over the fact that niche products and brands are easily accessed anywhere, my question is, how will the globalization of shopping affect brands and consumers?  How will niche and luxury brands and categories – Italian leather, Colombian coffee, Parisian rugs - stand out and maintain their exclusive nature and integrity?  Coveted brands that once had an affiliation with a city, or a culture, are now available to consumers all over the world. One doesn't have to leave her kitchen table in Vandiver, Alabama to buy this season's latest Manolo Blahniks.  How will premium brands avoid becoming the next proverbial Campbell’s soup can?  Is brand cache being compromised due to over accessibility? Will prestige brands no longer hold their value? Could their aura be dispelled? 

I pondered this one Saturday shopping in Soho after enjoying brunch with friends (tough life, I know). It became ever clearer that I didn’t have to buy anything in the stores to experience this once renowned and respected shopping Mecca. A very similar sensorial experience could be lived online - the taste, the sounds, the smell, the vibe of the stores are available through their websites. Sophisticated e-commerce technologies enable easy product purchase with the added benefit of insured shipping directly to my doorman.

It seems that the convenience of the Internet is overriding the nostalgia of buying something in a beautiful boutique. In fact, this holiday season shoppers spent $27 billion on the Web, a 5% increase over last year. Even Christmas shopping has moved from the social hustle and bustle of malls and city streets to the sanctuary and privacy of one’s home. Why go to Fifth Ave. when I can buy my boyfriend Tiffany's cufflinks from my living room? Right now affluent consumers are more and more comfortable with spending their cash online, and they justify these purchases with the research and product reviews they accessed in minutes.

On the other side of the coin, how will consumers thinking about this simplicity of shopping evolve? Consumer purchases once associated with world travel are quickly becoming less envied for their status and they may begin to look harder for brands and items that make them feel special.  Brand managers will need to innovate harder and improve the digital experience of their brand so they can stand out, be found and shopped in a way that consumers feel justified in spending their money on something that’s "one-of-a-kind" and worthy.

I often visit sites like etsy.com and ARTSPROJEKT.COM to get what I like to call, “the flea market flavor.”  These sites, among many others, buy and sell hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind goods and are pioneers in effectively introducing the craftsman back to the consumer. Again, I’m completely buying into the convenience of the Internet, but will these sites begin to rise to the top and in turn, make consumers feel like they are special, privileged and justified in their purchases? I’m seeing more and more of that experience.

Marketers need to continually refine their target, understand who they are speaking to and really get into their heads and how their target is shopping. Observing and learning how their consumers are evolving and reacting to the Internet is key to engaging their target and maintaining a loyal consumer base.

I was driving near the hotel in Cebu, the Philippines, just this weekend – taking a quick getaway for Chinese New Year with my partner. As we trundled along the relatively rough roads towards our place of stay I was struck by the incredible wealth and richness of the crowded, intense town we were in.

To many these towns in Cebu are called ‘barrios’: places identified by their obvious corrugated tin roofs, driftwood walls and muddy courtyards. As ever, global brands peek in to a world that’s been so off their radars until very recently, with their clever co-branding initiatives. A Coke logo punctuates a grilled chicken shack; Nestle chocolate next to a local bakery; and the ubiquitous Unilever products adorning almost everything else.

It’s a mish mash collision of brand & brazen poverty that would make a marketing manager, safely tucked away in his or her air conditioned corner office cringe.  Children run around in nothing but Barbie T-Shirts playing with chickens and the solitary old fisherman sings away on an early projection karaoke system oblivious to the screech of 2 stroke scooters carrying an entire family home for a dinner.

At this point it might be worth a re-read, I opened by speaking about how taken aback I was with the richness and wealth and then proceeded to paint an evocative yet clear picture of what is considered by many as abject poverty. So what am I going on about?

What I saw, on every corner, every doorstep and every yard was ACTION. People speaking to people, people sitting back and chatting, sleeping, getting a haircut, minding each other’s children, arguing, doing laundry, washing out of a bucket – but ACTION. This wasn’t an A to B town, where all you see is a closed door and a commuter. This was a living breathing town of ACTION and it starts and ends on the doorstep.

We don’t have many doorsteps in the Far West anymore; we just call them lobbies. It’s where we place our wet umbrellas, usually in some readymade ‘umbrella condom’ (as heaven forbid we let the heaven’s tears touch the tiles). It’s a place to leave from but never really arrive. It’s a grey area in the social spectrum for us. The thought of having a conversation on the step seems to have evaporated from the way we live.

In a rush for the often mentioned (and personally loathed) ‘me time’ we’ve excluded any chance of ‘we time’. The glue that binds us together as a people will never be destroyed by dalliances such as Facebook and Twitter – more by our lack of shared time, with people we know – and those we don’t.

As someone who shares his life with someone from Asia, having this ‘doorstep time’ was very perplexing. If we were going on a family day trip why would we stop 10 minutes into the journey for snacks and a chat? And then why would we stop again to pick something up? In fact I soon realised I was a fool to ever believe that the best part of the journey is arriving – it’s now the comedic hell and humdrum of getting there.

This social interaction – peppering everything you do with moments to sit, talk, think, be together but not actually ACHIEVE much is part and parcel of the lives of many in Asia. Let me correct myself, what you actually achieve is immeasurable – you achieve bonds with people that matter (and some that may matter less) you interact with people and you learn and share experiences. This doorstep culture can’t be completed in 140 characters or less - it’s more like 140 minutes. These are the actions that bind cultures together, through thick or thin.

Speaking of thin, back to Cebu. These towns are thin on monetary wealth, opportunity and what we might call infrastructure. But they have something that can’t be bought, traded or imported – they have a collective culture of sharing time, space and thinking and humour with each other. This is something that’s fading in the West with our ACTION moments replaced with technology, growth and economy.

It’s easy to say ‘these places are so undeveloped, so poor, so dirty (we’ll talk about real dirt in a future piece)’ - they are not. They are glued together as a community culture –and the testament of the very strength of that bond is that these problems they face – a life and existence, by our standards, so much harder than ours, is their ability to rise about wanting, needed and craving – to understand what they have is what they have – and to not just make the most of it – but to excel at living with it right on their doorsteps, every day.

I teach a donation based yoga class every few months. The intent is simple, afford as many people as possible the opportunity to try yoga, and make money for good causes. I bill the classes as free, but with an invitation to students to donate some monies at the end of each class, to the charity of the day. This donation is optional. The first time I taught this type of donation based class, I expected that the monies raised would be lesser than a regular class, however, the donations received greatly  exceeded my expectations and normal returns from a class. This led me to wonder, if a donation based model would work for business, replacing one of the classic 4ps of the marketing mix - price. Given today's empowered consumer, what if the public were to decide on the value of a product or service, rather than the brand or company dictating the price? I searched for examples of where it was working in business. Radiohead in releasing their album last year, posted it on the internet as a free download and invited fans to pay what they wanted to pay. The theory was something like this: like it a lot = pay a lot, like it not = pay nothing. No hard sticker pricing here. They simply invited fans to let their conscience guide them. And it worked. Sales were higher than previous albums.

Of course this method of pricing requires great faith in the world, that there will be some form of gratitude.

The philosophy behind donation-based yoga is ultimately accessibility and I guess for Radiohead it was the same. Making yoga available to all people, regardless of fitness level and most importantly, finances makes for a refreshingly un-elitist and welcoming atmosphere.

Ironically what might appear as a haphazard business model, is gaining in popularity in the U.S. for obvious economic reasons.

A donation based model refocuses the spirit on community rather than commodity. It's an antidote to exclusivity and commercialization that comes with rising prices.

Geraldine O'Neill is also the author of the blog Yogi925