-: We are living in very interesting times.
We've had four decades of globalization.
We are in the middle of a digital consumer revolution
with e-commerce taking off, digital marketing taking off,
and we've been through a worldwide global pandemic.
And so it's more important than ever before
to understand what drives consumer choice,
what drives consumer behavior
and eventually spending and purchase behavior.
So that was the purpose of the research
that we did across over 20 markets
and tens of thousands of consumers around the world.
And the most surprising thing we found
was the diversity of mindsets around the world.
I'll freely admit that when we started this piece of work,
I expected consumer clusters to emerge.
I expected similar clusters in Asia,
similar consumers in Europe, so on and so forth.
But really, despite four decades of globalization,
consumers are very diverse around the world.
Let me share a few examples.
Let's look at entrepreneurship.
The Nigerians, the Indians
are amongst the most entrepreneurial
with a clear drive to try to build their own business.
Very different from the Japanese
who don't aspire to build a business today.
Let's look at peer perception.
The Chinese deeply care about
what their peer group thinks about them.
The French, on the other hand,
extremely individualistic,
don't really care about peer perception.
Well, marketers I think,
will find this research very helpful for them.
I have three overall implications for them.
First, do not ignore the diversity around the world.
In fact, I would say embrace the diversity of mindsets
and try to understand the mindsets
of each local market that you try to get into.
The second lesson for marketeers is
go a level or two deeper
and think about specific needs in specific categories.
Here we find surprising commonalities
between markets that are so different culturally
at the level of the needs.
Let me give you one example.
The China market is one of the most unique cultures
in the world.
In fact, Chinese consumers
are not similar in their mindset
to any other place in the world.
But when we looked at the specific needs
of Chinese consumers for snacking,
and we compared it for some snacking needs
elsewhere in the world,
we found that Chinese, Indonesians,
and Saudi Arabians have very similar profiles
when it comes to their needs for snacking.
They think of it as a social occasion.
They think of it as a way to bond with their peers.
And third, and finally,
probably the most important:
Invest in understanding your consumers.
Invest in understanding the new normal we live in
and what that means for your products
and for your categories.
And I think that would be a key source
of competitive advantage.
Thank you.