Have the sharing economy and collaborative consumption gained enough traction to warrant a research study funded by a major advertising agency? Yes, or so believes Campbell Mithun, the ad agency in question.
"This trend is no longer emerging, it's here," according to Lynn Franz, Campbell Mithun's director of strategic planning. "And the marketplace should accommodate a consumer wanting nimble access to things instead of outright ownership of them. That drastically changes the go-to-market strategy."
Campbell Mithun sees three distinct areas comprising the sharing economy: consumer to consumer (C2C), business to consumer (B2C), and business to business (B2B). They also see huge marketing opportunities within each of those demographic bases and, therefore, wanted to better identify who businesses need to reach, what users want, and how to tell the story of their services.
Franz surmised, "Success in the sharing economy prioritizes the health and trust of the sharing network. When a brand offers real value to a consumer committed to the notion of sharing, that consumer will share not only his or her influence and endorsement, but a committed stake in seeing that brand succeed." And that's the sweet spot ad agencies aim for.
The study broke down participants by generation, with Gen X coming ahead in terms of passion for collaborative consumption. Gen X edged out Gen Y (or Millennials) when it came to the "very appealing" designation for sharing with 31 percent and 24 percent responding, respectively. Both generations, though, handily topped Baby Boomers who only had 15 percent in the "very appealing" category. Researchers noted that a number of factors, both rational and emotional, contributed to each group's affinity for sharing.
Ranked Order of Rational Benefits
- Financial – saves me money
- Environmental – is good for the environment
- Lifestyle – provides me flexibility
- Lifestyle – is practical
- Trial – provides access to goods/services
Ranked Order of Emotional Benefits
- Generosity – I can help myself and others
- Community – I'm valued and belong
- Lifestyle – I'm smart
- Lifestyle -- I'm more responsible
- Cultural – I'm part of a movement
"Consumers want to own less but gain more," Franz added. "The perceived rational benefits all center on reduction and practicality, but the emotional ones deliver affirmation and belonging. So the marketer's brand must deliver value with meaning, which becomes personal depending on the consumer."
Go here for more infographics related to the study.
Comments
Randy Scott White wrote on 02.15.12, 11:33am:
This post is not to promote Bright Neighbor, but rather to tell our experience.
We pioneered a sharing economy application in 2007 to create local prosperity around offering a market for sharing, barter, selling, renting, teaching, learning, meeting, and creating. (www.portland.brightneighbor.com)
Our core feature set:
- Location based Swap & Share feature matching "I Have" to "I Want" - across the city and down to neighborhood levels
- Community calendar
- Places map
- Events map
- Ride sharing
- Social profile that matches interests to those with same interests that live around you
- Lending / rental check-out system
- Teaching videos for urban agriculture skills
Our experience in Portland, Oregon, has shown successes and learning from things that did not work.
The most important part is that while things are still relatively cheap to own, people will continue to go to stores and buy them to avoid having to go through the motions of negotiating the value of item A - VS - B.
In other words, how many pieces of firewood are enough to pay for someone fixing your sink?
It takes time, effort, and thinking to barter. It takes a commitment to not only share your stuff with new people you don't know or trust, it also takes time and effort.
AND, even if you immerse yourself in sharing, you still need to generate dollars to pay for mortgages and debts that people and institutions only accept dollars for.
So - the sharing economy will continue to emerge, indeed - but the rise of the sharing economy apps / sites also creates
sharing fatigue... you will only join so many portals, and neighbor A may miss Neighbor B since they have joined different sharing communities or portals.
So the best way to move forward would be for sharing economy organizations to join together as a coalition for open-integration... if I add a hammer or ladder to Bright Neighbor, it should automatically be added to other sharing networks like NeighborGoods, etc. Add in advertising from local businesses (since people still do BUY stuff), and do a revenue share between companies, and you can feed the beast of capitalism while growing collaborative consumption.
So... the first to build a "Addictomatic" like application for doing a search for hammers and getting search results for all the sharing apps for any given neighborhood will be the clear winner.
As for the future, I see a major mashup sharing tech with localized food / fuel creation as prices for goods increase. There is a TED presentation about this if you want to see the future of a resource constrained economy:
http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxSoMa-Randy-White-The-Sharin
That's exactly what the users of our ridesharing website tell us!
By using www.carpooling.com, I pay less for transport, I protect the planet, it's easy and convenient. I meet people I like, I can help out, I'm smart...
Great video!