For more than a year, the U.S. media have been ablaze over women’s growing economic clout. The Atlantic Monthly, in a much-commented-upon cover story, has trumpeted “the end of men.” More recently, Time magazine has proclaimed women “the richer sex.”

And how do men feel about women’s new-found power?

How about fine?

According to a new GfK Roper study for Men’s Health magazine, 70% of American men are “OK” to “completely happy” with the prospect of their wife or partner having a higher salary than they do.

68% are OK to happy with their spouse or partner being better educated than they are.

Majorities of guys are also agreeable to equally sharing food shopping (73%), housecleaning (73%), and childcare (68%).  

Close reading of the results suggests that the shift is not about abdication but affirmation. Men are building a different kind of life than their forebears, one with room for success at work and in their personal life.

Well-roundedness is the new grail, says Ronan Gardiner, publisher of Men’s Health, which monthly serves up advice on health, fitness, and life to 12 million readers. According to the survey, the traits most aspired to by men today embody well-roundedness. Topping the list:  being happy, confident, easygoing, self-reliant, and hard-working. The leading life goals: Time for self, time with family, a good sex life (are we not men?), learning new things, and staying physically fit.

Work is not unimportant. Indeed, the survey shows, a solid majority of men aspire to a successful career and an interesting, high-paying job. But they also want to be able to coach the kids’ sports teams and follow their bliss in personal pursuits. As Cary Silvers, director of consumer insights for Men’s Health, observes, success today means more than the “traditional, narrow dimensions of work and career.” 

In truth, work never was the be-all, end-all it was cracked up to be. Popular culture has been telling us as much for decades, from Death of a Salesman and Man in the Gray Flannel Suit to the martinis-and-ennui-steeped Mad Men. Women’s rising economic power is giving men what many could have used all along – a partner to help them get more of life.

And men are going for it. Where a decade ago, time with family was the biggest gap in men’s aspirations – something they desired but did not have – today it is the most commonly shared part of men’s lifestyles; three-quarters of guys who aspire to it, have it. Two-thirds, meanwhile, say they have time for self.  

Time’s recent cover story suggests that men increasingly will see women’s growing economic power as a win-win. Our study suggests they already do. Case in point: Two-thirds of men rate their life as at least as good as it was five years ago, recession and all.

For marketers, all this adds up to a more compelling male consumer. The old trope about men not asking for directions? No longer true. As men have taken on more responsibilities, they’ve become smart, resourceful information hunters. Majorities go online to read product reviews, study companies’ websites, and track down deals. Armed with the equalizer of information, they’re engaging salespeople with their questions – something unthinkable for men of generations past. Growing numbers use smart phones to get more input at point of sale.

The bottom line is more points of contact for businesses savvy to men’s changing lives. The new gender dynamic is not just win-win but win-win-win, for women, men, and marketers, too. 

Jon Berry, a vice president in GfK Roper Consulting, helped develop the Men’s Health study. For more information on the study, which interviewed 3,000 men 18-65 years old on consumer attitudes and behaviors as well as their aspirations and values, see the full release or contact Cary Silvers, director of consumer insights for Men’s Health, Cary.Silvers@Rodale.com.

This coming month sees the release of the first deliverable from the new batch of Roper Reports Worldwide data – the Mood of the World report 2012. This is always one of GfK Roper Consulting’s most keenly awaited releases, not just because it gives us a first glimpse at insights from our latest 37,000 interviews with consumers globally, but also because one of the key elements of the report, consumer confidence, is critical to our clients’ understanding of the economic and commercial outlook.

The argument that consumer confidence can act as a leading-edge indicator of a country’s future economic health was made forcefully by the respected economics commentator David Smith in his column in the London Sunday Times in September last year, when he noted that, “I have learned not to ignore these confidence measures. In the autumn of 2007, when no mainstream economist was forecasting outright recession, collapsing consumer confidence proved to be a reliable harbinger of the coming doom.” Smith was making his comments in light of GfK NOP’s monthly UK consumer confidence barometer having fallen to levels that would “normally presage a slide back into recession.” As we now know, this prediction would later prove to be depressingly accurate.

Roper Reports Worldwide’s consumer confidence measure, which we’ve been tracking globally since 2000, provides an annual measure of customer mood in 25 markets around the world, and in each case offers a valuable insight into how consumers are feeling about their own prospects for the year ahead. Is Europe likely to experience a consumer-led recovery any time soon? Will the bullishness of US shoppers help sustain the current upturn? And are citizens of emerging markets such as China being affected by talk of a possible slowdown in growth? Our figures offer valuable pointers on these questions and more.  

Of course, there’s a lot more to the Mood of the World report than consumer confidence. We also track a list of 21 concerns, offering a fascinating insight into the main preoccupations of consumers globally. Plus since the global financial crisis of 2009, we’ve been asking consumers in more detail how their lives have been affected by economic events. For instance, whether their employment situation and levels of savings and investments have improved or worsened, as well as whether they’ve had difficulty in paying off debt. We also capture the way in which these factors impact their spending habits, in the form of cutbacks and money saving strategies. Our aggregate of all of these measures, which we call the Consumer Recession Index, is a holistic and comprehensive view of the impact of prevailing economic conditions on consumers and their spending habits.

For more information of the Mood of the World Reports 2012, and how to ensure you receive your copy as soon as it is released, contact us.

Recent reports of surging growth among luxury goods makers such as LVMH and Burberry underline the insatiable appetite of consumers in emerging markets such as China for products with prestigious brand names. What’s more, data from Roper Reports Worldwide show that this desire for status brands is shared even by those consumers in emerging markets with relatively low incomes. This highlights the differences around the world in what consumers think is worth paying for – in other words, what constitutes ‘value’.

The phenomenal growth in demand for branded luxury goods in emerging markets is well documented. The driver of this growth is not just increased affluence in these markets, but also the prevailing Personal Values orientation, the Achiever mindset, which is characterized by a focus on making a good impression upon others.

While the difference between developed and emerging markets in the proportion of those agreeing they like to buy products with prestigious brand names was as small as 3 percentage points in 2008, by 2011 it stood at 12 % pts. The recession of 2008-09 led many consumers in Developed markets to reject outward displays of wealth and consumption, either through necessity or because it sat ill-at-ease with the mood of the time. In the past year, desire for luxury goods has rebounded somewhat in the Developed world, but has not yet attained pre-recession levels.

While at a headline level, demand for prestigious brand names is lower in developed markets, more detailed analysis shows that this view is confined largely to lower-income consumers in these markets. High-income consumers here are almost as likely as their emerging world counterparts to express enthusiasm. More striking yet, however, is how universal the enthusiasm for premium brands is in developing markets, even among those with lower incomes, highlighting the fact that the Achiever mindset is aspirational for many.

What these findings show, above all, is that a prestigious brand that acts as a display of status and success to others is in many cases a fundamental requirement for consumers in emerging markets, with even those who can ill-afford such brands expressing enthusiasm. In other words, a prestigious brand is worth paying for. By contrast, since the economic downturn in 2009, many consumers in developed markets have become less likely to see the value of such brand, and instead many admit switching from name brands to less expensive alternatives, as our Mood of the World report attests.

This is just one of the elements covered by our Redefining Value trend, one of the twelve that make up our global TrendKey framework of consumer attitudinal trends. The Mood of the World Report 2012 is set for release at the end of May.

At GfK Roper Consulting we spend a lot of our time talking with Clients about consumer trends and how changes are impacting markets across the world now and next. From our experience we know that recognising the existence of certain trends is just the beginning.

After that come all kinds of questions: How big is a trend and how is it evolving? Which consumers is any given trend affecting most? What effects does it have on the kind of products or services to launch? Based on over 16 years’ knowledge of researching the evolution of consumer behaviour across 25+ markets – representing more than 83% of global GDP – we have developed an approach to understanding how macro drivers combine with consumer trends to open up new understanding and new opportunities.

TrendKey 3.1 is our practical, research-based and actionable consumer trend framework that allows our Clients to turn consumer insight into competitive advantage. We have just produced a new ‘infomercial’ about our work but please get in touch if you want to know more.

Sunday, April 22, 2012, marked the 42^nd anniversary of Earth Day in the United States. This is generally a time for companies, governments, and non-profits to tout the good they are doing for the environment. These same organizations will also motivate the public to take action on the environment – many will hold Earth Day fairs or sponsor events like a River Clean-Up Day. In fact, these types of activities have become expected and ubiquitous. But the Annual Earth Day celebration is also a good time to reflect on some of the highs and lows of the environmental movement in the United States. In many ways, the US has been a leader in the environmental arena, but there have been obstacles as well.

The modern environmental movement was born here. The first Earth Day was held in the US in 1970 (as mentioned above), Republican President Richard Nixon had the foresight to create the Environmental Protection Agency, and Legislation like the Clean Air Act (1970), Clean Water Act (1972), and Superfund (1980) have become models for the rest of the world. But at the same time, America has suffered environmental setbacks. The US failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol limiting global green-house gas emissions, and many proposed environmental policies have been stalled over fears of possible economic damage.

At GfK Roper Consulting we have observed similar peaks and valleys in the public’s attitudes and behaviors toward the environment through our annual Green Gauge surveys conducted in the US and 24 other countries around the world. For example, increased Institutional support and public awareness has doubled the level of US adults who now recycle at least some of their waste. In addition, support of environmental education has lifted overall knowledge of environmental issues nearly 30% since 1995. At the same time, the US remains one of the most skeptical nations in the world when it comes to anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change. Moreover, in relation to the rest of the world the US tends to view the cost of going green as “too high” and “too time consuming.” 

Despite some of the valleys, the environmental movement in the US is on a positive trajectory that will be very difficult to stop. Young Americans and institutions point the way.  Americans under the age of 45 display a concern, interest, and motivation toward environmental issues that will keep environmentalism part of the national conversation into the foreseeable future. In addition, the environment retains strong support within large institutions – corporate America, governments (local, state, and federal), and non-profits. Indeed, it is this support that has kept the movement afloat through difficult economic times.

So as we celebrate the 42^nd anniversary of one of the most influential movements of our time, there is every reason to hope that our descendants will be celebrating the centennial anniversary in 2070.

Note:  Green Gauge has been tracking environmental attitudes and behaviors in the United States and abroad since 1990. Fresh data from the 2012 Green Gauge US and Global Surveys will be available starting this June. For more information please contact Tim at Tim.Kenyon@gfk.com or visit our website.

A guest post by Hannah Tierney, Digital Technology

At a time when innovation in devices, mobility and connectivity continue to drive the way we use everyday services, socialise and communicate, what trends can we expect to emerge in the forthcoming months? Using GfK data to explore how technology is likely to evolve throughout this year, we’ve identified five consumer-led trends to look out for…

1 – Reaching the Cloud

This is the year that cloud-based solutions will creep into the mainstream. Offering internet-based computing where shared information, software, and resources are accessible on demand, this trend is largely driven by the ever-increasing use of smartphones, connected devices and other advanced mobile applications. As such, it is an essential development to complement the ecosystem as it facilitates consistent service usage and storage across any device.

However, these solutions must go hand-in-hand with educating consumers on how they can organise their increasingly complex digital lives, with simplicity and value being key. As such, we may see the rise of a new business opportunity around the management of digital life for a fee, as tech companies translate technology solutions into consumer benefits.

2 – Excellence as standard

Well-managed, easily-accessible content is no longer enough – consumers want consistent high quality and a seamless user experience. With more consumers accessing content from a greater range of devices, from smartphones to tablets, HTML5 looks to be the computer language of the future. Worth its weight in gold for consumer experience, it is simple for developers and therefore easily-accessible for all.

The use of this code alongside cloud technology to create app-like functionality for browsers is significant as apps continue to be popular and integral for driving loyalty to operating systems, thereby dictating device choice. In this light, the high expectations of consumers should not be taken lightly. The use of blogs, forums and review sites provides products and services with a whole new world of influence, so brands should beware.

 3 – Seamless existence

The internet has emerged as the key enabler in a wireless ecosystem based on mobile devices being connected to facilitate real-time communication. The importance of being connected socially and having a constant connection has implications for providers. Operators now have the chance to take advantage of their relationship with the consumer by offering enhanced data connectivity by subscription rather than by device. Of course, device refers not only to mobiles – the desire for fully integrated in-home experience is set to rise in the coming months, with laptops and tablets becoming increasingly housebound, used as localised mobile devices as part of the home ecosystem.

4 – Right here, right now

Demand for instant gratification is not a new trend, but advances in technology enabling tailored, instant and relevant information means that expectations are on the rise for instant everywhere.

Location-based service (LBS) is likely to change the way we buy as technology provides relevant content consumers based on this latest geo-marketing trend. Near Field Communication (NFC) will additionally enhance the consumer experience, empowering devices to immediately and securely pass information over a short distance, authorising payment by simply ‘tapping’ a reader.

Concern for consumers is likely to focus on security. Providers will effectively be able to map the lives of consumers by piecing together the detailed information to which they increasingly have access.

5 – Gate keepers

As noted in section 4, people are becoming more aware of the scale of personal information they store online. While consumers expect tailored content and recommendations, security will be a key driver of loyalty in the future.

Trusted brands will be in a strong position to balance ease of access and usability with growing security concerns. A completely new revenue stream may also be available to these ‘trusted’ brands, with operators in a strong position to affiliate with partners who will help to streamline consumer experience whilst additionally providing customers with a safe and secure solution to their digital lives.

Finally, the EU is currently revising its privacy policy which is likely to have significant implications for consumers and businesses alike.

In light of these five Tech Trends, do you affiliate with these emerging into the mainstream, or are there other trends you identify as rising to prominence throughout 2012?

To read the full copy of ‘Tech Trends: Harmonisation of Digital Live’, please click here. 

Theme #4 Considered Consumers have an Achiever mindset

Global Considered Consumers share certain values such as Social Responsibility, Knowledge and Curiosity and we might be tempted to think that Considered Consumers are more likely to be Socialrationals or Nurturers in their personal value orientation. However the GfK Roper Consulting study reveals that the most prevalent grouping is in fact the Achiever segment with 1 in 4 global Considered Consumers displaying an ‘Achiever’ mindset. Achievers tend to buy things to express their feelings of accomplishment. Considered Consumers may therefore choose to demonstrate their beliefs, values and ideals through products that are deemed to be ‘cool’ or ‘chic’. This offers a badging opportunity to brands as consumers will look to display their status by wearing or purchasing heritage brands that conform to their ethical standards.

In tomorrow’s world, brands don’t really have a choice but to be socially responsible. It is crucial to consider the Considered Consumption mindset before, during and after production. Brands must embrace transparency, deliver quality and harness the power of influence. And finally, global values messages will need local execution, which of course has never been more important yet harder to achieve.

 About GfK Roper Consulting

Gfk Roper Consulting is a research-based global consumer trend & brand consultancy delivering the largest source of intelligence and analysis of consumers around the world. GfK Roper Consulting has developed TrendKey 3.1, an inspiring, practical and actionable consumer trends framework that translates consumer insight into competitive advantage.

Theme #3 Considered Consumers are INFLUENTIALS

Considered Consumers are more likely to speak about their experiences, more likely to promote or speak frankly about the shortcomings of the products and services that they sample. 49% globally claim that they go out of their way to tell others about products and services that they really like, this contrasts with just one-fifth of consumers who are considered to be low-impact for this trend. Such results emphasise the importance of creating a positive image amongst these consumers, both in terms of repeat business from them, but also in terms of the messages that they are communicating to others about your brand.

In tomorrow’s world, brands don’t really have a choice but to be socially responsible. It is crucial to consider the Considered Consumption mindset before, during and after production. Brands must embrace transparency, deliver quality and harness the power of influence. And finally, global values messages will need local execution, which of course has never been more important yet harder to achieve. For more details on the Considered Consumption trend, contact us.

Theme #2 Considered Consumers value Quality

Considered Consumers are prepared to compromise. Around the world, consumers who are considered to be “High Impact” for the Considered Consumption Trend are much more likely to agree with the statement “I would prefer to buy fewer, higher quality items” – 58% of global consumers agree with this statement. These consumers are prepared to make a trade-off: It’s not all about low prices for low quality items – a sizeable proportion of consumers will trade the quantity of items they own for better quality of both product and experience. This plays into the success of brands such as Hermès which recently cited growth in revenue terms in excess of 18%. Hermès went to market in the second half of 2011 with a communications campaign that draws upon their history of delivering cutting- edge styling throughout the life of the brand. The tagline ‘Contemporary Artisan since 1837’ draws together the elements of heritage (in the use of the year “1837”), quality (inferred by the term “Artisan”) and current thinking (through defining their products as “contemporary”).

In tomorrow’s world, brands don’t really have a choice but to be socially responsible. It is crucial to consider the Considered Consumption mindset before, during and after production. Brands must embrace transparency, deliver quality and harness the power of influence. And finally, global values messages will need local execution, which of course has never been more important yet harder to achieve. For more details on the Considered Consumption trend, contact us.

Theme #1 Considered Consumers seek TRANSPARENCY