The death of the individual

One of the biggest social trends of recent years is over. The search for individuality, which has driven much of our marketing, is last year’s trend. Now it’s all about belonging.

The big unmet need is friendships, particularly close friendships. In the U.S. the number of close friends each person has dropped dramatically in recent years, from 2.94 in 1985 to 2.08 in 2004 (Note 1).

Many reasons have been advanced (e.g. Note 2)
- Time crunch
- Mobility as people move for employment
- Homophobia as it becomes unacceptable to show intimacy with other males if you are straight
- The growth of social networking which encourages casual friendships but inhibits intimacy

But the fact is that people care less about defining who they are and more about finding people to share who they are with. And with the current economic crisis it is more important than ever to have someone to share your worries with and someone to drown them with.

To me this accounts for the amazing growth of social networks. Yes there is a narcissistic element to them; who really cares what you are doing or thinking right now. But the real appeal is that it is easy to find friends. Facebook’s friend finder will help you if you’re having trouble and will even suggest some potential friends to you. Classmates or Friends Reunited will find your old friends again for you, though in most cases you will quickly remember why you lost contact.

People are almost desperate to expand their network of friends. The average person has 150 friends on their social network, including an increasing number of trophy friends. And yet only 5 of these are “close friends”. (Note 3)

So stop selling products on individuality and self discovery and start selling them on belonging. I really don’t want to see any more of “Where do you want to go today?”, “You’re worth it”, “Be all you can be”, “Have it your way” and their ilk.

1. http://www.asanet.org/galleries/default-file/June06ASRFeature.pdf
2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/25/AR2006062500566.html
3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/3306173/Facebook-study-reveals-users-trophy-friends.html

The New Celebrity of Hope

You’ve all seen Susan Boyle’s triumph on Britain’s Got Talent. If not catch it on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY .

I suspect it’s all a marketing ploy by Simon Cowell – who wears beige dress for their TV opportunity of a lifetime by choice? But even so I think it’s great that such an ordinary person can become a celebrity even for a few weeks.

And I love our attitude. It’s such a change from the usual approach to celebrity, where we are waiting for the trainwreck of Amy Winehouse’s or Britney Spears’ lives. After the initial dismissive reaction of the audience they were transformed, like the rest of us. Now we want her to succeed, to become a star.

Whereas most celebrity watching is about envy, our reaction to Susan Boyle is one of hope – if she can do it anyone can. We don’t envy her success, wanting her to fail, we revel in it pushing to higher heights. I’d sooner choose hope over envy any day, and it gladdens me that the public as a whole have as well.

We’ve seen nothing like it since Eddie the Eagle and the Jamaican Bob Sled team brought so much joy to the Calgary Olympics. Perhaps it’s related to the economy. On Monday, October 19, 1997, known as Black Monday, the Dow Jones crashed by 23%. The Calgary Olympics opened a few months later on February 13, 1998. Now ten years later we are in a similar position and up pops Susan Boyle.

You go girl.