A Great American Rethink is well underway. The technological, informational and inspirational barriers to changing any and everything about our lives, our careers, our families and our businesses have evaporated.
And the data shows that everyday people, now more than ever, are actually acting on their internal imperative to change themselves and their lives - in a way that is gaining momentum against the age-old, utterly human tendency to crave change, yet stay inert:
- We’re rethinking work: For three months running, the government-reported rates of people quitting their jobs has outpaced the rate of those getting laid off, a sky-high “Shove-it Indicator” rate for a job market still plagued by high unemployment . This baffles analysts who expected this to be a one-time anomaly when it first happened in February of this year. The days of the 30-year job are gone, and over a third of the workforce is comprised of freelancers, part-timers, consultants and contractors.
- We’re rethinking home: Home ownership rates are at a 15 year low, despite the fact that home values seem to be recovering and mortgage rates are at rock-bottom lows. And home ownership rates are down 12.5 percent in Americans under 35 - more than in any other age group – which doesn’t overlap with those who lost homes to foreclosure. Those who can afford to buy remember the recent foreclosure fallout and are cautious with their timing and spending, if and when they do get off the fence.
- We’re rethinking health: Consumers are taking their health into their own hands. PricewaterhouseCoopers projects that at today’s pace, consumers will spend $14 billion on mobile health apps, video games and resources that rate medical care providers in 2014. To boot, health and fitness measures that were once perceived as extreme have gone mainstream: 13 million Americans completed road races (5Ks, 10Ks, Half-Marathons and Marathons) in 2010 - an all-time record, and a 10% increase over the previous year.
In past generations, aspirations were largely out-of-reach, largely material dreams: A sum certain in the bank. A house in that neighborhood. To hit that particular number on the scale. Many people held the same exact aspirations, in fact, to wit: The American Dream. These were one-and-done dreams, bucket list dreams: you could reach them, check them off, retire and die.
But Boomers’ children? There’s a large segment of us who identify ourselves as life hackers, wellness-and-wealth tinkerers, lifestyle design enthusiasts by nature. The craving for transformation is constant, or at least recurring: it is a way of life. We want to experience and be, versus get: we want to be marathoners and yoginis, be entrepreneurs and be world travelers – not just take a trip around the world.
We crave the transformational experience, the process of change, the process of constantly revisiting what is and isn’t working, where we are and are not dissatisfied, where we could be doing more, bigger, better and making lifestyle, career, business, even health and financial power-tweaks. We crave to be engaged in that process of continual growth, constant evolution almost as much as we crave the actual outcomes themselves.
And - here’s the rub for entrepreneurs and businesses - we fall in love with the brands and technologies and gadgets and personalities (often CEOs, innovators and self-taught experts) that put a stake in the ground and deliver ongoing resources that:
- power our aspirations
- help us reach our goals and change our habits, and
- fuel the ongoing transformations we want in our lives, our careers, our health and our finances -
- and help us do all of the above more efficiently, stylishly, enjoyably, effectively (or with less friction, backsliding and pain) than we could otherwise or with previous generations of products or services.
We don’t just try or buy these brands, products and services. We fall deeply in love with them - having an emotional relationship with them that far exceeds what makes sense based strictly on the utility of the product to our lives.
- We buy them over and over again, in large quantities.
- We Tweet @ and about them, we ridicule our Facebook friends who aren’t using them, we blog or post links about them, and we ‘share’ their product page links with our social networks.
- We read their blogs, wait for their newsletters, watch their videos and comment - we go practice yoga in the streets with them and put our names in lotteries to score tickets to their events.
Non-conformity does not equal anti-consumerism.
I submit that this change-craving segment of the marketplace is a legitimate consumer group: the Transformational Consumer. I also submit that understanding users through the lens of their change-based aspirations equips businesses to better engage and serve them. So maybe the best starting point for exploring this Transformational Consumer group is through the pattern of these aspirations, the common interests and ‘investments’ they are making in improving themselves and their lives:
- Health, Fitness and Mind-Body Wellness. This include health clubs and foods (quinoa, anyone?), supplements and recreational sports/wellness activities like, yoga, running, Crossfit, TRX and all the gear that goes along with them. It also includes things like digital health and wellness apps and games, spas, weight management programs, and infomercial fitness videos.
- Personal Finance. This includes money education and apps, personal finance software, financial and estate planning services - possibly even some real estate, mortgage, banking and investment transactions.
- Self Management and Behavior Change. This includes all the efforts and investments involved in changing our habits and behaviors, setting and further goals, recovery and reinvention, and managing our own emotions and mindsets, as through therapies and some self-help type books.
- Personal and Professional Development. Coaching, books, seminars, online educational courses and other workshops for skill-building and upleveling our performance or enjoyment of life - especially in the realm of ‘how-to’ materials, career development and entrepreneurship.
- Natural and High-Performance Living. Investments in what is put in, on and around their bodies (and those of their kids and pets) - as well as the actual physical spaces in which they live. This includes organic and whole foods, but also spends for green home remodels, natural home and body products and both high- and low-tech organizational and personal electronics for home and lifestyle.
In my quest to build this new way of understanding consumers via the lens of their craving to create change in their own lives and to understand where the edges of this Transformational Consumer group start and end or overlap with other consumer groups, I recently attended the LOHAS Forum, an annual meeting of companies that have long served the ‘Deep Green’ consumer, those engaged in what they call Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability.
It struck me that virtually all LOHAS consumers are Transformational Consumers - but not all Transformational Consumers are LOHAS consumers. (Transformational Consumers are probably a much lighter, somewhat less altruistic shade of green.) But get this: the Natural Marketing Institute tallies the LOHAS marketplace as covering $290 Billion in annual spending on personal health, natural lifestyles, green building, eco-tourism and alternative modes of energy and transportation, and estimates that this number has a 10-15 percent annual growth rate.
This dollar amount, then, would seem like just the starting point for quantifying the spending power and market opportunity presented by the Transformational Consumer sector.
Transformational Consumers vote for lifestyle design with their dollars. They may eschew overly ostentatious consumer luxury goods, but will actually overspend on high-end, high-performance natural cosmetic, food, sports, autos and tech products - for themselves, their homes, their children and even their pets. They will spend more on wearable fitness trackers and online entrepreneurship courses than on a logo handbag - unless, that is, the logo is lululemon’s.
I’m not saying that these values are good or bad, or that they are better or worse than the priorities of any other consumer group or generation. Rather, I am pointing out that there is an unrecognized consumer segment - the Transformational Consumer - that industries and innovators can better understand and engage via their singular desire to constantly uplevel and create change in their lives, careers, health and personal finances, rather than by their demographics or even other sophisticated psychographic segmentation approaches, e.g., Alpha Moms, Succeeders, etc.
I’m also pointing out that this is a consumer segment with billions in spending power and evangelistic largesse to deploy with the brands that authentically connect with them around these aspirations.
The rethink is on. And the Transformational Consumer revolution will be televised. But it will also be experienced, streamed, time-shifted, watched and researched on 3 or 4 screens at a time, worn, tasted, smelled, blogged about, tracked, quantified, liked, shared, tweeted, rated, ranted about and reviewed.
So, Entrepreneurs, CEOs and Marketers: what, if anything, are you doing for the Transformational Consumer? And perhaps more importantly, is your company a Transformational Business?
NEXT UP: Is Your Company a Transformational Business? (It Should Be)
