With much of the country past hoping that BP's latest plan will stop the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, market researchers are struggling to get a handle on how "gulf despair" may change
they way we shop.
New data from Kantar Retail show that a majority of Americans—56%--feel they have been affected by the spill, many of them in multiple ways. The survey, part of its
ongoing ShopperScape research, finds that sadness—even grief—and helplessness are among the most common feelings. So is anger, aimed not just at BP, but also Democrats, Republicans, and
President Obama.
Interestingly, for all the credit Gen Y gets for its green sensibility, they are also the least concerned. Some 51% of Gen Y say the spill "is not affecting me at all," versus
40% of seniors, 41% of the Baby Boomers, and 47% of the Gen X respondents. And overall, women are far more likely to be concerned: Only 42% say they are unaffected, compared with 53% of men.
The intensifying anger at BP doesn't surprise Mike Lawrence,
EVP/Chief Reputation Office of Cone, a cause-related marketing firm based in Boston. Cone fielded a study earlier this spring that
found that a staggering 92% of consumers think companies should be telling consumers more about how they do business, and 75% give companies a "C" or below on how they're engaging consumers around
social and environmental issues.
"Trust in big companies and institutions has been eroding to extremely low levels, and that was before the oil spill," he tells Marketing Daily. "Since then, BP
has reinforced every consumer's worst fear about why they can't trust a company in this daily soap opera."