Keep it simple
Don't be a Blackberry.
Here’s a brilliant, mesmerically dull chart:
We’ve asked this question for four years. In total, we’ve asked it to 51,000 people. And every time we get the same result – either 58%, 59% or 60% of people say they use comparison websites for financial products.
People like things that are simple. People like things that simplify complexity even more. Buying insurance is complicated, tedious and relatively high-stakes, so comparison sites are really useful – they invest loads in their UX and conduct the complicated process of filtering myriad options into a handy list. And as we’ve seen, the data doesn’t change much: people like using comparison sites. As a sort-of-famous meerkat would say: simples.
The Demand for Simplicity
The Demand for Simplicity is one of Trajectory’s consumer Macrotrends because it’s enduring. The manifestations change, but the need is consistent. Life is complicated, sometimes increasingly so, and we welcome devices and services that reduce that complexity.
In difficult economic times, I’d argue that simplicity becomes even more important. Dealing with financial constraint, as a consumer, is exhausting. Remembering the prices of items and the presence of offers in different places, remembering your loyalty cards and where to go for this and that product. Operating military-level control over heating and petrol use. Juggling pay dates, bills, subscription expiries and direct debits and stretching out each supermarket trip so it lasts as long as possible.
In the last few years, as inflation and prices have stretched household finances and consumer value-hunting tactics to breaking point, the demand for simplicity – for shortcuts to value that aren’t as cognitively wearing – is extra important. Private label is one such short cut. Which brings us to another wonderfully dull chart.
We’ve only got 20 months of data for this one, but we shouldn’t expect much change. As others, including Mark Ritson, have pointed out before, supermarket private label is really resilient in the UK, more so than other countries. And our 20 months of data includes the UK being in and out of recession, interest rates being below 4% and above 5% and CPI inflation being both in double figures and then thankfully not in double figures anymore.
We have one more incredibly boring chart for you. This one’s probably the most impressive, because the data spans two surveys (albeit with the same data collection methodology) over nearly fifteen years.
Another consumer short cut – buy the brand you trust, rather than the shiny new thing. Since 2011 (and nearly 60,000 interviews), we’ve never seen anything other than between 87% and 91% say that they’re the sort of person who buys trusted, reliable brands, because… well, virtually everyone is.
What does this mean?
The same implication, every time: this isn’t changing. People don’t like complexity and look for ways to simplify it. Sometimes that’s through service innovations, like price comparison sites, that take a very complicated process, that used to require intermediaries, and translate it into something simple that the customer is broadly in control of. The world isn’t getting less complicated. This trend will endure.
Sometimes, the brand is the simplification. Apple has leveraged this into its brand equity. Before the iPhone, smartphones were a disaster of complexity. Blackberry kept bringing out models that had a full QWERTY keyboard, and then, in a leap of inside the box product design that absolutely no one could have asked for, both a QWERTY keyboard and a (tiny) touchscreen. Madness. Meanwhile, Apple launched a phone with one button.
Beyond consumption. When you look for it, you see successful manifestations of simplicity everywhere. The BBC journalist Ros Atkins has made a name for himself by providing incredibly clear explainers of complex news stories. Wordle – and it’s many offshoots - was a viral hit because it’s a simple game, requiring minimal investment and zero learning curve. For a while yesterday afternoon, the tenth most-read story on the Guardian’s website was a column about simplifying mental clutter.
Simplicity can go too far. Sometimes, complexity is good. Visitor attractions, particularly outdoor ones, are disadvantaged by weather apps that reduce an entire day’s weather, for a whole area, to a single icon (that invariably has a raindrop in it somewhere). They argue this discourages visits and travel – and it’s not hard to sympathise, given that the icon usually masks a whole range of different options, only one of which is rain. Ofsted, for years, prioritised simplicity above nuance when rating schools, reducing the thousands of hours of education, safeguarding and support each year to one of four ratings, three of which were a single word. The BBC and other public service broadcasters argue that the Netflix button on your remote is unfair – it offers a too-simple shortcut to an unregulated on demand service. In these examples, a little more complexity might be welcome.
More than this
If you’re interested in finding out more about trends like the demand for simplicity and how they’ll shape the short and long term future, here’s a few options…
If you’re a Trajectory Now & Next member… more commentary on the Demand for Simplicity macrotrend is here, our latest slide deck on how consumers and managing (and spending) is here and a deep dive into the importance of control is here.
If you’re not a Trajectory Now & Next member… why not? More information on signing up is here.
Whoever you are, thanks for reading. If you have a question about the past, present or future, and think Trajectory can help you answer it, just get in touch.