It’s official: shopping at Aldi is now cool. According to new research from RAPP UK, unveiled at its Opportunity in Austerity briefing in London, cash-strapped Britons, faced with the economy’s stuttering recovery from its worst recession in decades, are making changes to their lifestyle - including doing more of their shopping at low-cost supermarkets.
After the bling-obsessed boom years, any taboo surrounding low-cost brands was blown away by the economic downturn. It’s now socially acceptable to discuss money-saving techniques with friends and even work colleagues.
As so often, this big societal trend is observable through thousands of tiny shifts in people’s everyday behaviour. For example, eBay recently said they’d seen a big increase in interest from residents of Britain’s poshest postcodes - with even high-income households apparently getting the reselling bug - while RAPP’s own research suggests over one-third of people have recently started to look online for discount codes and vouchers - good news for affiliates.
And pay-TV providers such as Sky and Virgin Media could win big thanks to a new-found preference for “intertainment”: households spending nights in with friends as a cheaper option to a night out.
In other words, recession creates opportunities for brands - in certain categories, at least.