A Decade of Marketing Driven Changes to Everyday Life

A retrospective of marketing driven changes to everyday life over the last ten years,

The fast food we ate

McDonalds went from a gaudy supersized children’s fast food chain to a bistro-esc restaurant with great coffee, locally sourced food and free Wi-Fi that we’re lovin’ while KFC and Burger King stayed the same. The average high street gained coffee shops from Starbucks, Costa Coffee and Pret a Manger. Subway made us fresh sandwiches.

The cars we drove

Aston Martins went from a rare sight to a common occurrence. You could buy an SUV from Porsche. Volvo, Rover and Saab went bust. The Mini returned, this time from the Germans. China grew the largest car industry in the world. We bought cars more often and the government gave us discount. We filled our tanks with chip fat. We could buy an electric powered sports car.

Where we shopped

Woolworths lies empty. We went from cheques and signatures to chip and pin. Empowered shoppers scanned barcodes into our phones to compare prices and bought online.

The computers we used

Apple went from an awkward brand for graphic designer to must have desk decor. Microsoft released Vista and we hated it. Laptops shrank into notebooks and then further into netbooks.

The phones we didn’t just talk on

Nokia and Samsung bought us cheap mobile phones and we texted. BlackBerry enabled us to email, Apple empowered us to do everything else, Google made it all open source.

The TV’s we hung on our walls

The lure of more pixels saw us flock en mass to buy new flat screen HD TV’s and BlueRay players. Our DVD collections became redundant. Video recorders became PVR’s and we stopped watching adverts.

We all joined the catwalk

Brands such as Gucci and Armani became available in nearly all cities. Burberry fought a perilous association with a consumer we branded as chavs. Primark gave it all away for less.

The music we stole

MySpace brought us bands we’d likely never have heard of. Consumers saw no value in music and shared illegally. The traditional industry was smashed by a new industry offering it at the right price, or even free.

What we ate

Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda rewarded loyalty with store cards. We demanded  local produce and no more plastic bags, they responded. M&S returned with a seductive voice and Waitrose gave us wider aisles. Aldi and Lidle cushioned our cuts in personal spending.

The next ten years

All the success stories came from companies that embraced their markets needs and, despite the scepticism they had to battle, their hunger and perseverance to give more value rewarded them.

All those who failed did so by not adapting or communicating fast enough to meet demand.

Is your business preparing for the next decade or still catching up with the previous one?