Can brands really encourage people to make ‘good choices’? The Drum’s editor-in-chief Gordon Young, is of the belief that consumers have more power than we credit them. 

This should not be a revelation but, sadly, to some, it is. The most powerful force in the marketing ecosystem remains the consumer. It is something that those mandating Heat Pumps and insisting we should move to electric cars immediately are finding out the hard way. Sales of electric cars in advanced economies continue to struggle. They are practical as local runabouts and for those who have access to off-street parking and a charging point. But they are not a practical option for most people. Will they ever?

If the US or UK were carpeted with fast chargers today, they would blow the grid. Potential buyers have worked this out. It doesn't add up.

Meanwhile, the UK government has set a target for 600,000 heat pumps to be installed every year by 2028. However, in 2022 only 55,000 were sold. The National Audit Office said the government targets are optimistic. The problem - heat pumps appear to be a more expensive and less efficient option for most households. Promotion alone cannot help if the product itself does not pass muster.

There is no shortage of clumsy efforts from marketers trying to implement social good. These are endlessly tiresome to Consumers. Plus, time and time again, it’s been proven that consumers have to vote with their wallets before thinking about the bigger picture. And we must also not forget they like what they like, is it really our role to tell them they are wrong or that they must change?

It is a theme James Bailey, executive director of Waitrose, touched on at the Oxford Literary Festival this weekend. He claimed that the retailer only sells unhealthy food because that is what consumers buy. “The most important people in this debate are not people like me; they are not necessarily politicians, although those politicians have an important part to play. The most important people are the customers, the consumers,” he said via The Telegraph.

“I know there is a simple and comfortable caricature of supermarkets as mind-controlling Dr Evils who control everything you do, and point you down different parts of the store and try to get you to buy lots of chocolate. And that is true, we do sell all those products, and a lot of them are unhealthy.”

He reminded the audience that the supermarkets are “are commercial creatures”... “guided almost immediately by consumer choice.” Then he struck on a point that reflects the fears of many marketers, if consumers voted with their pocket and shopped more environmentally sustainable, or healthily, then the supermarkets would be the first to follow the shift. But they don’t.

He was challenged on whether supermarkets had a responsibility to help educate customers on how food is produced. He responded: “Customers are not shopping in a library. One of my favorite facts about supermarket shopping is that, on average, from driving into the car park to leaving at the other end, someone looks at seven words on the entire journey.”

The supermarket, he claimed is not the place to learn about food. Furthermore, he explained that better, healthier food would cost more. And that will be a hard sell. Consumers are where they are, and the retailer has limited power to drive any positive shifts. We’ve seen the same in the push to net zero.

Here,  the words of Mitch McConnell spring to mind: “Every politician knows what needs to be done; not every politician knows how to get re-elected after they’ve done it.”

But of course, the marketing industry can help. To a degree.

It needs to remind policymakers that they have to get back to first principles. To paraphrase another US politician, this time JFK, “ask not what my consumer can do for me, but what I can do for my consumer.”

As well as the big picture stuff, like dealing with climate change, that might include paying attention to how policies can help them in the here and now - an oversight that is damaging efforts the world over. And, of course, in order to build trust they have to stop pressing products on consumers that are not fit for purpose or are not quite ready. Where’s the good in that?