The Romanian Consumer between Values and Constraints - Retrospective and Outlook
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Septembrie 2008 |
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OANA MIRILA - Qualitative Research Director
GFK ROMANIA |
Adresa
Strada George Constantinescu, Nr. 3
Cladirea BOC Upground, Etaj 6
020339 Bucureşti, Sector 2
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+40-21-205.55.00
+40-722-61.13.74
+40-741-82.28.00
Fax
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Website
www.gfk-ro.com
www.gfkcs.com
OANA MIRILA
Qualitative Research Director
GFK ROMANIA - INSTITUT DE CERCETARE DE PIAŢĂ S.R.L.
Adaptable, curious, vain, sensitive to other people’s perception of them, materialistic, pragmatic, critic, with a sense of humor, avoiding risk, reactive, in need of stability, emotionally connected to the family, eager for relaxation, short-term vision (1-2 years). This is how the Romanian consumer of the year 2008 can be characterized.
Background and current status
Looking back one can identify a number of major “milestones” that the Romanian market and its consumers have passed in their post-1989 history:
- 1998 – consumption peak for the post-1989 period, followed by a plunge that continued until 2002 (!);
- 2003 – the first year when the “record” consumption of 1998 is exceeded;
- 2003-2004 – (home and personal) loans become accessible, and the natural consequence of the exponential rise in loans in the urban areas was the increase of investments in durables (electronics & home appliances);
- 2004 – boom in the IT&C accessories and gadgets industry, which continued in subsequent years and is still at very high levels at present;
- 2005 – the first year when the volume of mobile calls exceeds that of landline calls;
- 2006-2007 – boom in modern retail, in residential projects, two digits percents rise in the sale of new cars, life insurance, introduction of mandatory private pension and of the system of voluntary pension;
- 2008 – the number of mobile telephony customers exceeds the total number of Romanian inhabitants.
Whilst still oriented towards satisfying concrete needs (home, car, home appliances and endowments), many Romanians prove they have moved on to new demands.
Leaving behind the enthusiasm and naïveté of the early ‘90s, when they were trying to make up for the frustrations of communist times and were buying everything they had been unable to buy before 1989, Romanian consumers have set off on their road to emancipation, learning what specialization means, learning to discriminate between products and brands and in the last 4-5 years have become more and more exigent with regards to the “price” of quality, more pragmatic, more interested in saving time and effort, more familiar with new technologies.
The expansion of modern retail, the launch and consolidation of the major hypermarket and discount store chains had a paramount contribution to the shaping and adapting of the consumers’ behaviour especially with regards to the consumption of FMCG.
The key contributions to influencing their behaviour come from:
- The offer diversity: which led to a diversification of consumption needs, discovery of new, previously unidentified ones, and the “pressure” of satisfying these new needs by introducing suitable products in the consumption patterns;
- The strong upsurge in promotions: special price offers have got the public accustomed to these loyalty reward methods, the consumers have grown more and more demanding in regard to the way manufacturers and stores reward their loyalty and they assess products and brands also through their activism in this area.
Both elements had a crucial contribution to the consumers’ becoming more selective, better informed and more demanding, able to discriminate between offers not merely based on price.
Whilst for the low income consumers PRICE remains the KEY CRITERION for the selection of FMCG (food, PC of HHC), for those with medium and high income the selection criteria become more and more sophisticated, the IMAGE associated to products and the STORY that the BRANDS tell when addressing their potential public gaining more and more weight.
The consumers have learned very fast how to use the IMAGE of brands as status indicator, and they tend to gain more and more access to such aspirationality benchmarks. This applies to both the new generation, born in the late ‘80s - early ‘90s, and to those aged over 30.
The fact that the first generation born after 1989 and those who were still in their early beginnings at that time are now young adults whose opinion counts in the purchase decisions made by their families has obviously contributed to more dynamic choices and has required special attention from those who deal with building and promoting the brand images.
Youth who have grown up in the “new” system are more CRITICAL and less inclined to be unconditionally loyal to brands and/or products. They build a better shaped self-image and prove more self-confidence and more boldness in expressing their own ideas, having more courage to question the norms than generations raised before 1989. The easiness with which they handle information and communication means provides them with better mobility and ensures, as mentioned above, that their opinion bears greater weight on the “must-have” list of a family.
The large number of Romanians working abroad has also contributed to an accelerated adoption and integration of the NEW into the consumption habits, the lifestyle, the values and the relation to them: those who have had this experience have become more responsible, more mindful of the money they earn as well as more demanding and discriminating with what is offered to them. And the MONEY they brought into the country had a key contribution not only to the increase of Romania’s GDP, but also to a change in appearance, at least at “micro” level, within the communities they belong to.
