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What are old preoccupations and new worries that keep most urban Chinese awake at night?
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IT is well known that one of the biggest bugbears of the Chinese is environmental pollution.
The GfK Consumer Life 2015 data (an annual study done in over 25 countries) suggests that this concern preoccupies the urban Chinese mind.
Sixty percent of Chinese consumers mention this as one of their key problems today — more than any other issue keeping them awake at night. While globally, too, this is a key consumer concern, in the rest of the world it competes closely with financial worries like fears about inflation and high prices.
This is a concern which is acquiring a larger and larger significance in the Chinese consumer mind. In 2009, just after the global economic crisis, worries about recession and unemployment plagued Chinese consumers — much more than the environment.
However stable economic growth and low unemployment rates in China since 2009 have been instrumental in displacing economic worries with environmental pollution.
It remains to be seen if the recent economic slowdown will still keep environmental pollution ahead of financial worries or if the post recession scenario of 2009 will make a comeback.
Economic worries are not altogether out of the consumer mind — 40 percent are worried about not having enough money to pay their bills and nearly an equal proportion are worried about inflation. Interestingly, though worries about a general recession have come down significantly since 2009, the anxiety about having enough money personally is still significant. This can perhaps be explained by expanding consumer needs and desires.
It is well established that Chinese consumers are not only consuming more, but also consuming better quality and more premium products, increasing the demands on their resources.
Interestingly, worries about extremism and crime are much less pronounced in China as the country has so far remained largely unscathed by the global mayhem of suicide bombers and terrorism.
Another area where the Chinese seem to worry more than the rest of the world is the quality of education that their children receive.
While this may be surprising given recent reports about the strengths of Chinese students in subjects like mathematics, this concern comes from the rather high expectations and demands that Chinese parents have in this area. Education has long been a sure-fire route to social mobility in China, and a superlative performance in the all-important gaokao, or the college admission test, is widely seen as making or breaking a child’s future. This remains a perennial concern for the Chinese and shows no sign of dilution.
These dominant consumer concerns need to shape the communication strategies of all companies in China — not just those who are in potentially environment polluting areas or in education. All products and brands needs to demonstrate that they empathize with consumers’ concerns and are working towards their abatement in every possible way they can.
Ashok Sethi is the APAC regional head for Brand and Customer research for GfK.
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