Contributor: Hannah Gabrielle, London
I don’t really know much about the Eurozone other than the fact that the media seems to have a unanimous opinion that it’s on the brink of collapse. My knowledge of it is confined to the fact that British leaders have kept our nation out of the Euro, but that inhabitants of Eurozone countries are allowed to migrate to Britain. That and a few weekends in European cities which suggested that having the Euro rather than, say, the Franc, means everything surreptitiously increased in price. So going to the continent no longer meant a cheap weekend away. But what does the supposedly immanent collapse of the Euro mean for the advertising industry? I’ve thought long and hard about this and come to the conclusion that the only way to unravel that conundrum is to understand what the collapse of the Euro might mean to consumers, and how it has affected their attitude to spending.
So I did a bit of digging. I asked a few friends and colleagues what it meant to them. And the answers were interesting. At first there was a furrowed brow. Then a shrug of the shoulders and finally the confession that it meant next to nothing to them. Almost everyone I spoke to had the same view: ‘well we’re in the economic doldrums anyway, so what difference does the collapse of the Euro make to me? What does it have to do with me anyway?’
Of course, currencies are like domino stacks, being interlinked and having an impact on surrounding economies, but my peer group seems to be quite fatalistic about the economy anyway. I asked people if their attitude to spending had changed in the last five years and it seems it hasn’t that much. One friend noted he had started buying 2-4-1 deals in the supermarket and buying cheaper option day to day essentials, but that he had also still bought himself expensive luxury items: a £100 pair or trainers, a new Mac book and iPhone in the last three months. So he wasn’t THAT cautious with his spending. I asked him why he thought he did this and he replied ‘well if everything’s going down the plug-hole you might as well enjoy life.’ This schizophrenic attitude to spending is probably one that best defines our generation.
What I don’t understand about the Eurozone – and all western economies at the moment – is that old adage ‘what goes up must come down‘. Because economists seem to suggest that what goes up must continue to soar, because, should it fall, then it’ll bring the sky down with it. People are more logical than this and quite accepting of the fact that peaks and troughs are inevitable.
Contributor Hannah Gabrielle
My spend-hungry friend and I got to talking about foreign currencies and the implications of their ups and downs and how we both felt about the financial crisis, which, we concurred, seems to have come about because of irresponsible banking behaviour. He said “When the banks talk about the economy they aren’t talking about your bank balance, or mine – they’re talking about their own. I don’t see why I should be punished and have to curb my spending if I’m living within my means – I haven’t done anything wrong.” So what does the collapse of the Eurozone mean for the advertising industry? Not a lot. People will continue to spend as long as they can afford to.
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