Global food giant Heinz has made a bit of a fuss about the growth of private-label or in-house brands in our major supermarkets.

William Johnson, executive chairman, CEO and president of the $US16.4 billion company, complained to shareholders in the US last week that the firm would have to rework its strategy in Australia to “cope with the growing domination of private label goods and the never-ending discounting on branded goods by the supermarket chains.” Johnson labelled Australia as the “worst market” to do business.

Obviously, Heinz and other national brands should be doing everything they can to try and deal with this growth in supermarket private-label brands. It is in their interests to have as much of their product on the supermarket shelves as possible.

Similarly, the two major grocery chains, who command between 70 – 80% of the market, also have every right to do what they like, within the law, to get people to buy their private label products.

By shifting from national brands, such as Heinz, Kellog’s and others, to private label brands on their shelves, Australian supermarkets increase their already substantial control of the distribution chain by entering into highly controlled, vertical networks. In doing this, supermarkets are able to increase their profit margins, and force wholesalers and manufacturers into difficult, and often unprofitable, agreements.

Whether this is good or bad depends on how you look at it. I would argue that two particular perspectives are worth considering, which can be broadly termed the micro and the macro views.

A micro perspective – consumer behaviour

One of the arguments arising out of this debate has been that the private labels are “mimicking” the packaging of the national brands so that they can trick consumers into accidentally buying the private label version.

So, the argument goes, I walk into the supermarket planning to buy Uncle Toby’s muesli, but grab the Woolworths Select version, because it looks a bit like the Uncle Toby’s version, and not realise the mistake until I get home. I have been tricked into buying the brand because it looked a bit like it.

Yet, the reality of the “mimicking” approach is a bit more subtle than this.

It’s not about consumers making a mistake when they make a choice. Its about consumers feeling okay to make the choice of the in-house or private label brand, because it looks a bit like the national brands.

All consumer behaviour is a balancing of the finite processing resources available to us. Despite what rationalists might erroneously think, people use a whole range of processing shortcuts (we call them heuristics) to make decisions, rather than considering all information equally and reflectively.

If a pack of Woolworths Select muesli looks similar to a pack of Uncle Toby’s or Kellog’s muesli, then it is easier for a consumer to choose it. It sounds silly, I know, but if you think that few of us are pharmacologists, or chefs, then we have to rely on factors other than, say the ingredients, or the materials used, to help us to make a decision. If the product looks (mostly) like the national brand, and it is cheaper, then it is easier for us to choose it.

This is why we all fall for the French jam trick. If we are trying to make an assessment about which jam to choose, and we want something a little bit special, then many of us are drawn toward the jam that purports or looks like it is a little bit French. If you think about it in a rational way, just because it is made in France doesn’t necessarily make it better, but its “French-ness” imbues it with an aura of quality.

For a long time, Coles’ and Woolworths’ Home Brand and Embassy generic labels made good inroads for those who were happy to pay less for products that were perceived to be of lesser quality. Even that form of branding reflected a particular perspective and shortcut for many consumers; “if I buy this brand, I’m not buying into the ‘marketing’ tricks that others fall for”.

This may sound a bit dismissive of human behaviour, but that is the reality of decision-making. We are a product of our finite processing capacity, and also our desire to be as efficient with our time, effort and money as possible. Processing information requires a lot of work, and our default position is to: operate automatically, rely on past experience, and undertake as little effort as possible in our decision-making. Even if we are provided with good information, it is unlikely we will use it.

When we reach for that muesli, our objective is to exercise minimal effort. We are not conscious of this, and we are not alone. We all do it.

All that Coles and Woolworths are doing is exploiting a basic psychological predisposition.

The question is whether we are okay with that.

A macro perspective – competition

Purists on the competition side predictably say that the growth of private labels is all good.

As former ACCC chairman Bob Baxt said, “the use of private label is just another form of competition. As long as the labelling is not misleading. I don’t see anything wrong with private labels, in fact it’s another way [in] which companies can compete and thus deliver benefits to consumers.” Like most regulators, Baxt takes a primarily rational view of decision-making – that if consumers are provided with appropriate information, they will make the most appropriate choices.

Another long-term assumption is that if consumers are getting lower prices, they will move toward the lower priced goods, which will force the national brands to change their selling propositions (toward a lower-price model). In the end, everyone benefits, because we all get lower prices, businesses become more efficient, and (eventually) consumers are provided with the products that they want.

The pure competition thesis is an appealing one, especially to classical economists, politicians, and lawyers, because, at face value, it says that people should be able to choose how they want to spend their money.

A parallel narrative that tends to go with this is that in the long run, the market will force industries to become more competitive, through consumer choice. Those that aren’t competitive will simply not survive.

The end point is that the market decides whether an industry or supplier should exist, rather than an arbitrary decision made by a government regulator.

So, if consumers care about a particular industry, they will make a choice to buy particular goods to support that industry, even if those goods are more expensive than the alternative.

At a simplistic level, when cast through an economic “prism”, lower prices seem like a great idea. But this approach makes an assumption that we live in a marketplace, rather than a community, and that we are simply consumers, rather than citizens.

This is where a more philosophical and longer-term approach might be appropriate. It may sound a little idealistic (and perhaps naïve), but I would hope that we are more utility seeking “transactors”, looking for something more than lower prices to buy stuff, and satisfying our individual needs and wants.

What makes sense or seems reasonable now – in this case the paradigm of the supremacy of the market, and a drive for competition at all costs – may not make sense as we force more and more industries to the wall through our desperate individual need for lower prices.

At a very practical level, as people lose jobs, and as industries disappear, we may well see a need for more support from government, which will inevitably increase tax burdens, meaning that we have less money to spend on cheaper products.

Another outcome of the desperate race toward cheaper products is that it leads to poorer quality goods, and businesses taking more risks in production to find savings. As goods are sourced from places with less stringent control over production, quality and safety is inevitably compromised.

Free marketeers will argue that all this means that those who can afford it should be allowed to spend their money on better quality (and safer) products, if they choose.

Similarly, our desire for lower prices so that we can buy more stuff, also means that we overconsume, with the resulting impact on the environment, our health, and our global community.

There is something missing in this rather unsophisticated discourse around the market and competition.

As sociologist Zygmunt Baumann says in his book, Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers: “All or most currently held views of reason and good sense tend to be praxeomorphic [in other words, they include practice and perception]. They take shape in response to the realities “out there” as seen through the prism of human practice – what humans currently do, know how to do, are trained, groomed and inclined to do.”

Sometimes we have to challenge a particular ideology – in this case, that lower prices and competition is good for everyone – even if we don’t yet have the language or expertise to say exactly what is problematic about it.

The recent growth of the Occupy movement is indicative of unhappiness with the current frame, even if those involved can’t quite articulate what the answer is.

We are a product of a discourse built around rationalism, economics, and the individual, and many answers may not fit the current frame. But this focus on the market as the only arbiter has not always been the case, and at some point, beliefs and behaviours (and laws) may shift the balance to an alternative ideological frame.

In the short-term, the discussion is probably going to leave us with more questions than answers. But this is the nature of argument. Even if we can’t yet articulate the answer, our responsibility as reflective human beings is to constantly question ideas, test assumptions, and examine motivations.

But we should be okay with that? From my perspective, it is the next step in a more enlightened view of the experience of what it is to be human.

But thanks to a call from a current affairs program, I was recently alerted to a new campaign by the Australian chapter of the Mormon church, which is currently being tested in Brisbane. I had seen a similar campaign while in New York in August. The Australian campaign currently consists of an online, well produced series of advertisements and billboards, highlighting that Mormons are “just like you and me”.

My name is Will Hopoate, and I’m a Mormon

Clearly the Mormons are trying to change attitudes about their church and their religion. The Mormon brand has not done well over the years. “Big Love”, “The Osmonds”, and South Park have all had a go at trying to explain The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

I’m Grant Leeworthy, and I’m a Mormon

The underlying story about Joseph Smith, being told by the angel, Moroni, to wander into the hills around his home in Manchester, New York, find the golden plates and start a new religion, has plenty of critics, but the Mormon church has about 14 million members around the world, including more than 100,000 in Australia.

I’m Steve Brouggy, and I’m a Mormon

So, it doesn’t surprise me that the church is using social media to get to Australians, and perhaps create some new “customers”. The effectiveness of that approach (in a similar context) is discussed here. The ads are well-made, have high production values, and, at face value, are trying to overcome simplistic stereotypes of what the Mormons believe people think the Mormons are… if that makes sense. By using “normal” people, and including the “pitch” at the end, the campaign is trying to tell us that Mormons are just like us (a bit like Brand Power… but different).

I’m Lorin Nicholson, and I’m a Mormon

But having looked through a couple of the online advertisements for the Australian campaign, I felt like I had been transported back to some strange “Mad Men” era, where men could do whatever they liked, and women were required to stay home and look after the kiddies.

I’m Patrice Arkins, and I’m a Mormon

Look through a couple of the advertisements, and it is obvious that there are clear roles being framed here. Men of the Mormon church are encouraged to be loving fathers and family men, but to also have lives outside of the family that are stimulating, diverse, and, of course, spiritual.

My name is Sarah Osmotherly, and I’m a Mormon

Women, on the other hand, seem to have one role – to look after their family. The women portrayed in the 30 second Australian spots, seem to have (had) exciting and rewarding careers, but the narrative coming through seems to imply that something was missing from their lives, and that all they needed was to stop focusing on life outside the family, and become full-time mothers. As one of the featured women say, “… so, home, that’s where I’m gonna be.” The implication is that these women sought fulfilment by giving up their careers and outside life, although the ads aren’t clear as to whether that is, indeed, the case.

Please don’t get me wrong – I don’t have a problem with full-time parenting. I think having the means and capacity to focus on on your family is a great thing. But I do have a problem when the campaign doesn’t once mention that any of the men considered giving up their careers/education/exciting lives, so that they could become full-time dads.

I may be a bit out of touch with the real world, but why is it that women always have to give up “life” for the family, but men don’t?  And why is that so many religions reinforce this view?

Campaigns like these really do shock me, but I would imagine that the Mormons probably don’t see anything wrong with this particular sentiment.

But then again, as I often say, if it doesn’t resonate with me, I am probably not the target audience… or it is a really bad ad.

Branding is all about perception, rather than some objective reality. And the key to branding is trust. This move has the potential to further erode trust in the “flying kangaroo” amongst its key publics, including business travellers and the government.

To some degree, you could argue that the Australian public were conscious of the ongoing negotiations with pilots, engineers and baggage handlers (although knowing this level of detail would still require reasonably serious engagement with the issue), and were willing to shift the blame for delays and cancellations to the broad concept of the “unions”. This worked in Qantas’ favour; by announcing delays were due to “industrial action”, they were able to handball any responsibility for the problems on to some other ambiguous and unidentified bunch of “workers”.

But what Joyce has done over the past 72 hours, with his acceptance of a substantial payrise (regardless of whether it did or did not constitute a payrise, the general public will perceive this as so), and then a day later, shutting down the airline due to pay disputes, is to “trash” any support for Qantas management in its negotiations.

Most people will perceive that when industrial action was being taken by the “unions”, Qantas was placed in a difficult situation, which was partly out of their control. The Qantas PR strategy of placing the blame squarely at the feet of the different negotiating unions, could have been seen to be mostly working. Passengers were angry, but mostly not with Qantas.

With this latest move, however, there is no doubt in the minds of the public that the lock-out (despite its legality), was initiated by Qantas, at a time when large numbers of passengers will be desperately trying to get around Australia and the world.

The unexpected nature of the announcement, to the public and the government, but the preconceived planning by the board, will do Joyce and the Qantas brand no favours at all.

Clearly, Joyce and his board, have been pushed to this by what they believe to be extreme circumstances, but many consumers, in a reasonably competitive marketplace, will no longer support the decisions of Qantas management.

Despite what many commentators have said, this action is not at all similar to the Australian Waterfront Dispute between unions and the Patrick Corporation of 1998, simply because this directly involves consumers who have experienced delays now or in the past with airlines.

People perceive that the waterfront is an abstract and relatively aggressive environment, and, certainly in the short-term most of us were not affected by the dispute. This time it’s different. The Qantas lock-out and shut-down is direct and concrete for anyone who has ever flown on a plane.

It is even more concrete for those stuck as airports. And the footage does not look good for Qantas.

By surprising the government, and embarrassing them while hosting a major international event in CHOGM, Qantas will have lost the support of another of their publics.

So, Qantas management and their board have made a strategic mistake (at least from a branding perspective).

Even if they do get a termination of industrial action from Fair Work Australia, the Qantas brand will have been seriously trashed by the action of the board and the CEO.

The business outcome is that Virgin will begin to take market share from Qantas, particularly with business travellers, who simply want the service. Through this action, Qantas have forced many of their loyal customers to “trial” Virgin. This is explained by the Ehrenberg ATR communications model (Awareness-Trial-Reinforcement), where a key component of any business strategy is to move consumer toward your brand by getting them to trial it (like all theories, the ATR model has its critics). If consumers trial the brand, and are satisfied, then it increases the likelihood of their use of it in the future. By trying the brand, you make the experience more concrete, and therefore, easier to make a decision about whether you do or don’t want to use it in the future.

As I have said previously, marketing is not about massive changes in behaviour, it is about small, incremental shifts. If Virgin are able to provide a level of service equal to Qantas, then it will be difficult for Qantas to get back all of those customers, at least in the short-term.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and obviously Qantas see this move as one that needed to be done. But Joyce and the board have made an internal management decision, based on internal organisational needs, rather than a marketing decision. Many will argue that they had to do this, but losing sight of where your brand equity comes from is also a managerial imperative.

To think that their passengers will understand the complexities of negotiations with unions, take their side, and return to them when it is all over, is naïve in the extreme. Some will return, but Qantas’ market share, certainly in the medium-term, will be seriously damaged. Even if 10 per cent of Qantas’ current passengers think twice before booking, there will be a flow-on effect on the Qantas bottom line. When it is all over, they will have to do more than PR and a few full page advertisements to get their customers to forgive them.

One outcome of this approach, is that Joyce may well get what he wants – a reduced Australian workforce, willing to accept lower wages, and the capacity to put much of the international component of the business in Asia.

But the ramifications of Joyce’s approach is that he may also end up with a reduced customer base, which doesn’t help anyone… except maybe Qantas’ competitors.

~

This is an extended version of a piece published in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

~

And what happened when FlyLo was faced with their own industrial action.

In his letter to members, Minerals Council chief executive Mitch Hooke says that in current day Australia, major policy battles are fought and won in the media and that miners must spend accordingly.

So is Mitch Hooke right when he says the “new paradigm is one of public contest through the popular media more so than rational, effective, considered consultation and debate”?

I think that is part of the issue, but it is not something that has just happened in the last four years. It has happened as a result of the constant news cycle.

John Howard was master at using media forums to shift people’s thinking about a particular issue. It is not something that purely can be laid at the feet of the Labor Party, it is something that is a result of 24 hour news cycles, and a constant requirement for news and media to have a story of some kind.

However, I agree with [Hooke] on his point about the conversation shifting to the commercial media, although I do find it disappointing. Whether it is actually an effective way to manage public policy is completely different question.

The majority of where there is going to be a shift in people’s thinking is through what we could call commercial broadcast media.

The other issue to consider is that it is the commercial media where the debate is going to play out. What I mean is that it is often the commercial media (and the ABC) that set the agenda, and ultimately drive the discussion. In a way, with Hooke even talking about using the commercial media to create a point, he has created a story for the media to talk about as well.

It is quite a clever strategy; by drawing attention to the issue by saying “we are going to spend money in the commercial media to draw attention to this particular issue”, they are also going to drive editorial agendas.

The commercial news media, these industry groups, and the government are all contributing to this cycle. Everything supports everything else. If one decided not to pursue the issue, then it would lose its effect.

And as such, when it comes to spending taxpayers money, it puts the government a huge disadvantage. It is simply not a level playing field. The key problem is that governments (mostly) have to follow process, and there is an expectation of transparency and an appropriate use of taxpayer’s contributions.

It puts them at a huge disadvantage and even when they do spend funds they are going to be slapped down by the commercial sector saying “why are you spending taxpayer’s funds?”

I think one of the questions consumers should be asking the industry groups is whether “an advertising campaign is good use of my superannuation or investment contributions”?

A lot the mining companies and the investment companies are spending money that we have contributed to them in some way. As I have said in other forums, voters are very quick to ask where their taxes are being spent, and to be critical of how they are spent, but rarely ask the same questions of their investment or superannuation contributions.

People simply don’t (and can’t) scrutinise commercial businesses in the same way that they might scrutinise the operations of government. I don’t have a problem with government scrutiny, but as individuals shareholders simply don’t have the same level of control over where and what commercial businesses do with our money. With government, to some degree you can say that we can change the board of directors in government every three years, but you can’t do that with a mining company, a media company or an investment company.

I think that government itself has created part of the problem by playing out these games and processes in the news media. So they’re a victim of their own particular strategy.

I also think government and business overestimate the effectiveness of advertising. Rather than actually changing people’s attitudes, and changing behaviour, what advertising does is to work mostly as a means of reinforcing people’s particular loyalties, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours.

What you’ll find is that people who already have a particular attitude about the carbon tax or have a particular attitude about the mining industry will perceive any advertising as a means to reinforce their particular view. So, most people who already support the carbon tax or something similar, are unlikely to be moved by an expensive advertising campaign. The campaign will work best to reinforce people’s attitudes that are already willing to be nudged toward that particular perspective.

Most advertising is used to cement or create loyalty towards a particular idea or brand.

The other issue is that an advertising campaign has to have some degree of cut through to get to the target market. The reality is that if people are constantly being told to think about a particular issue this way through advertising, it is not going to be that effective in the long run.

The ACTU campaign around Work Choices was quite novel, but it also tapped into something that people already felt, or certainly the majority of people they were targeting already believed. It simply reinforced it for some people.

If over time, people build up a negative attitude towards a carbon tax, then that advertising is going to reinforce their thinking. Eventually, if all of our sources are telling us the same thing (and most people will use sources that are already aligned with their particular thinking), then we start to believe it as “truth”. We use editorial, advertising, and other messages through the media, commercial and otherwise to help ourselves work out what to think.

Very few of us have a deep intellectual understanding of the complexity of something like the ETS or a carbon tax, and how it will actually effect us, so we look to our particular trusted sources, including unsolicited advertising through broadcast media, to help us work this out.

But the most effective outcome of this particular strategy is not necessarily shifting individual perceptions, but convincing the government that the campaign is shifting individual perceptions.

~

This is a version of an article originally published at The Conversation.

The drop has been connected to speculation about the impact of the carbon tax, with Treasurer Wayne Swan calling on Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to “stop scaring the consumers”.

Retailer David Jones last night issued a dramatic profit downgrade, saying it expects second-half profits to be down by 9% to 12%. The company blamed the slowdown of sales on factors such as offshore Internet retailers due to the high Australian dollar, fears about the carbon tax and the impact of the flood levy.

People are tending to save more and spend less while international uncertainty and threats of further interest rate rises was also fuelling poor consumer confidence, the company said.

But in the midst of a continuing boom, why are Australians so pessimistic about the current conditions? And exactly how are these perceptions shaped?

Probably the key issue to address here, is how we interpret the information that is provided to us through something like a consumer confidence index. The reality is that we look at these metrics and assume they are absolute measures of a particular consumer response.

What is also important to understand is that the measure itself is a result of consumers trying to interpret the range of information that is constantly being provided to them through their information sources, including the media, but also their friends and other social groups.

Any sort of confidence index is obviously subjective, but the problem is that in most cases it is presented as an objective measure, particularly when it is delivered by a politician or an economist.

If we are receptive to the message, and we are being constantly told the sky is going to fall, many people look for evidence to support it, which increases the likelihood that they are going to believe that the sky is going to fall. Our biases influence our willingness to believe in the information being provided. So, that’s where you see the idea of consumer confidence. We don’t have the capacity to separate the rational elements from the emotional elements. It’s no surprise people are less confident because we are constantly being told to be less confident. It’s not an absolute thing, but it is pervasive and powerful.

And it’s not an issue of whether it is perceptual or reality.

At an individual level, perception is reality.

When it comes to indexes and surveys, there is an expectation that we should have an opinion about most things, when in fact we tend to be too busy to have strong opinions until somebody tells us that we need to have one.

So, when people are surveyed, or asked to have an opinion, there is a tendency to draw upon the information most readily accessible in their memory. It’s about recall more than anything. If you look at the way that people like you are responding to a particular issue, then this makes it easier for you to form an opinion. It is not a reflection of a rational reality. It is an emotional response.

Looking at the way that news is reported, there is not to feel confident about, most of the time. The role of news is to report the extraordinary, rather than the ordinary. So, news and the continuous news cycle, requires emotional stories, rather than rational stories. If you take the emotion out of the discourse – in reality Australia is in a really a good place in comparison to the rest of the world; Europe, Asia, even the US. So, it comes back to the “risk as feelings” thesis – that our opinion is determined by our immediate emotional perception of risk, today, to me, rather than any rational response to a situation.

That emotional response then has a flow-on response.

The consumer confidence index will add support to the attitudes of consumers who think that they should stop spending. And, as a quantitative measure, it provides an indication of confidence, which may lead to reduced spending. But there are other factors at play here.

I think if you stratified the data, you would actually see there are different types of people in different situations who would have a very different perspective.

Because we’re just looking at averages, basically you’re getting a broad perspective and that’s useful; but what you’re not getting is where is the confidence and where is the lack of confidence amongst the market.

So is it risky to use consumer confidence as a barometer to the health of the economy?

I don’t think it’s dangerous if it was being used as a suite of tools, but it becomes risky when it is presented as the index or monitor that everyone refers to and gets the headlines.

There is a tendency amongst politicians and the media to exploit lay people’s innumeracy, because people are willing to accept a number or statistic that a perceived authority presents, on trust, rather than argue back. When people are confronted by numbers or statistics they are likely to suspend natural scepticism in favour of acceptance of numbers as the final authority.

This is partly due the school curriculum, which tends to teach mathematics by rote, rather than by understanding, i.e., the numbers learned are meaningful because their teacher told them that they are meaningful. So, in the case of consumer response, most people (even highly educated people) are likely to assume that firstly, the numbers are accurate, and secondly, the numbers communicate the authority of the person or institute providing them.

In a way it’s the result of our need for absolute values and definitive information.

Most people don’t think about how confident they are about the economy  on a day to day basis, unless they get asked or have some major reason to be thinking about it. Generally speaking people get on with their very busy lives. It’s not until a politician ramps up perceptions around it and suggest that things are going to be bad that we think, “well maybe I should have an opinion”.

This constant focus on something as abstract as “the economy” is out of proportion to the way people operate on a day to day basis. And yet, our news bulletins are constantly telling us the S&P500 is, or the FTSE. Most people in the street wouldn’t even know what a FTSE is, yet this informs our view of how confident we should be.

So is Tony Abbott’s message more effective than the government’s?

——————————————————————

People are more likely to accept a message if it fits in with how they are currently seeing their world.

But this leads to a much bigger question: which is in last 15-20 years there has been a shift in the political and public discourse toward a pure focus on economics and the economy as the only barometer of national performance. Therefore, if everything is reduced to an economic measure, and then because its hard to understand and most people don’t have a complete or deep understand of macro or micro economics, we are drawn toward simple, uncomplicated, and emotional measures. So, when a politician, who you want to believe, says your life is going to be worse off and here’s why, it’s a lot easier to accept that message because it seems rational, it  has to some degrees numbers around it.

Even a word like tax has connotations that will change people’s perceptions, and is more readily accepted. This is probably why the government used the term Flood Levy, rather than tax. And this is why I find it curious that they continue to use the term Carbon Tax (that said, it is probably too late to change, simply because the government will be criticised for the use of “spin”).

At an individual level, if we think rationally about the carbon tax effects, being told bananas is going up 3c a kilo (when they went up nearly $10 a kilo as a result of Cyclone Yasi), for example, is not going to have a huge effect on the way people buy bananas. But there is also the issue of locus of control at play. We accept the pain of bananas at $14.99 a kilo because it was caused by natural phenomena. The carbon tax is something that we struggle with because we perceive that we have some level of control, because we voted in these particular politicians.

But it is scary to most people when you talk about this very amorphous thing called the carbon tax. It’s not an issue of whether the government has sold it badly. In fact, it’s more of an issue that they have spent too much time selling it, and therefore consumer confidence or lack of it has had time to fester and be picked at by the opposition.

The problem is that on top of the carbon tax benefits being poorly communicated, it’s also that we’ve had so much time to worry about it, it becomes easier for the worry to be amplified.

The bottom line is that people absorb these kind of changes into their lives reasonably quickly – the GST is a good example – but because at the moment it’s an abstract concept, it’s a lot easier to sell the negative aspects of it because generally speaking taxes come with negative connotations.

We’re all imagining how horrific our lives will be once this kind of thing is introduced and that’s why, even though the consumer confidence survey was conducted before the carbon tax was “announced”, the reality is that we already had been talking about since pretty much Abbott rolled Malcolm Turnbull for the leadership of the Liberal party.  Since that fateful day, in November, 2009, Tony Abbott has been relatively successful in making the Labour Party operate in full-time election mode.

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This article was originally published at The Conversation.

Bill Keller has joined the conga line of commentators decrying the end of friendships and knowledge as we know it by arguing that much of the interaction on social media sites is “reductive and redundant”.

In an article in his paper, he suggested that “basically we are outsourcing our brains to the cloud.” Keller seeks to embolden his argument by quoting a conversation with writer Joshua Foer who told him that “This is the story of the next half-century, as we become effectively cyborgs.”

Keller is accompanied by Janet Street-Porter, who, in a column in The Daily Mail in February 2009 subtly titled “Why I Hate Facebook”, says that that online social networks are “shallow” and “pathetic”, because they “delude users into thinking that they are experiencing and managing real relationships”.

While I do agree partially with Keller about the distinction between information and knowledge, technology and progression has always been met with end of the world proclamations.

Obviously these forays into the cyber war could be dismissed as a particularly jaundiced perspective from a bunch of grumpy old Luddites (which Keller admits).

But I believe what is more interesting here, is the transformation (or perhaps, evolution) of relationships, rather than the end of anything in particular.

How relationships evolve

There is no doubt that people are now shifting a significant proportion of their daily activities to the online environment, and that to a large degree, the systems and structures determined by technology are slowly infiltrating every aspect of our lives.

In addition to using the internet for gathering information, reading the news, playing role-playing games, shopping, and communication, people are also using it to meet friends, get in touch with old ones, form social networks, build communities, and even construct identities.

But it doesn’t mean that online relationships will replace our current relationships. The problem that is being highlighted here is that there is a tendency to think that any change will dramatically refashion the way we live our lives.

In fact, research (and experience) suggests that this is less than realistic.

Manipulating impressions

When it comes to human interaction, the arguments of the doomsayers fail to recognise the persistence of ambiguity and complexity in all of our relationships.

For some people (including people who might have difficulty forming relationships, such as those with social phobias, or forms of autism), the online environment is a perfect means by which they can meet like-minded others, and express who they are.

In the same way that we construct an identity when we go on a date by choosing a particular restaurant, or take a potential client to a footy game to impress upon them that we are like them, the online environment allows people to show their (online) friends what they want them to see.

We try to create and manipulate our identity all the time, and in both the online and offline world, we don’t have control over how people might interpret this construction.

By updating what we are doing, posting photos, or providing book recommendations, we are broadcasting our lives to people who might be interested, and, when people respond, it feels good to be noticed and valued.

Social networking improves relationships

For a person who doesn’t have a regular interaction with others in a workplace, such as the growing number of workers who work from home, are freelance, or consultants, then this is a good way to stay connected with the world. It doesn’t replace other relationships, it is just an additional means of interaction.

There seems to be a notion implied in a lot of commentary that the only “real” relationships are those that are deep, ongoing, personal, and face-to-face.

In fact, we form all sorts of relationships with people, and the online environment is, ultimately, just another form of facilitation, just like the telephone, SMS, email, and even letters.

Of course some people will have preferences, and of course, the telephone, SMS, letters and email, would never replace the close, caring, reciprocal relationships that we have with people with whom we interact together in the same environment on a regular basis.

But I would argue that there are plenty of people who maintain close, caring and authentic relationships with people via the telephone, email and online social groups.

Ultimately, what Facebook, tumblr, Twitter and the online environment does is facilitate another form of relationship.

Measuring your friends

What critics have to realise is that social systems are constantly reconfigured by the interaction of the observer and observed, the system and environment, human and technology.

The reality is that in many cases, relationships are multiform and multifaceted.

Keller’s 13 year old daughter might have accumulated 171 Facebook friends within an hour of joining, but these are Facebook friends.

As in other relationships, there would be a few of those friends that you can call on if you were in need of a lift home tonight, and similarly, others that you wouldn’t feel uncomfortable asking them if you could stay at their place for a night when you are next in London, Sydney, or Guantanamo Bay.

Putting a price on friendship

The one major concern here is that social networking sites may eventually commodify relationships.

Facebook is still trying to “monetise the business model”, which really means they have no idea at the moment how to make money from Facebook.

Present attempts with “targeted” advertising are pretty rudimentary and are easily ignored. But it won’t be long until someone is smart enough to reconsider the core logic by which we approach our understanding of the consumer, and the social nature of consumption.

In light of our emphatic adoption of technology, it should be these concerns that commentators should be focusing upon.

When the social world becomes a commercial world, it is cause for concern, but at present the business world is struggling as much with this model as Bill Keller and Janet Street-Porter.

This is not a real photo (Tony Abbott doesn't really chew pencils)

Politics is a tricky business. Being in government is even trickier.

But it should be pretty simple. It’s like any other business, isn’t it? It’s all just marketing. You find out what they want, you tell them what you’re going to do, and then you give it to them.

So is it simply a case of “selling” yourself a bit better, as independent MP Andrew Wilkie posited last week on ABC Radio National?

If that is the case, what does the government need to do?

Ask any good salesperson the key to making a sale, and they will tell you that there are two parts to a successful sales pitch.

Making the sale

The first step is to create or highlight a problem in the mind of the customer. As one highly successful salesman once told me, “You need to build the anxiety… build the need.”

The second step is to provide a “logical” solution to the problem, thus dissipating any anxiety. The key is to work with what the customer currently believes, because it will be easier for them to accept the solution.

Underpinning all of this is the need to remove any sense of complexity. The key is to make the problem and the eventual solution sound both plausible and simple. The selling process is about the fantasy – “Imagine what your life would be like if you bought this product” – not the reality.

It’s pretty basic stuff, and it works most of the time.

Research in the area of antecedents of voter behaviour suggests that a key factor in determining voter attitudes is their perception of which party provides them with the strongest sense of security.

Security is a fairly abstract concept, and can mean a whole range of things. For some, it might mean shelter, for others, a job, and for many, the very nebulous concept of national security. So, if you are an opposition leader, the best way to erode trust in the government is to create a belief that you (the voter) are not secure.

A relatively unsophisticated, but highly effective example of this is the use of the term “border security”, and the creation of a perceived “invasion”, by boat (which highlights our exposed shores), of asylum seekers. By dealing in the fantasy, and avoiding any complexity, the opposition has been able to establish control of this particular narrative to their advantage. All they have to do then is sell the solution. A simple response, such as “Stop the Boats” is presented as the logical and sensible. And by buying into the fantasy, the government gives the “problem” oxygen and sustains it in the mind of the voter.

This is contemporary Australian politics. Constituents are customers. Votes are a commodity. Being in power is the organisational objective. The selling philosophy drives the political process.

Ditching the product

But the current state of affairs in politics is not unique. What is happening in politics is a reflection of broader social, cultural, and political shifts. The ironic thing is that politicians are partially to blame.

By training voters to view the world predominantly through an economic prism, we have reached a point where everything becomes a commodity that is “sold” to the consumer (voter) in terms of utility, based on their individual needs and wants. When we aren’t satisfied with our current product (the government), we desperately look for the next, believing they will do the job better.

It’s not ideal, but it does reflect the reality.

Which brings us back to selling, and promotion. Can the government simply promote itself better as a solution to their current woes?

Brand Gillard

The biggest problem that Julia Gillard and the Labor Party have at present is that they seriously eroded voter trust when they removed Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister.

Despite his unpopularity, the general perception amongst the population is that Rudd’s removal was clandestine and deceptive, and we (voters) had no say in the process.

Although arguments can be made that voters elect the government, not the PM, over time both political parties have created a perception that we actually elect the PM, because much of the branding is built around the party leader, not the leader.

In the minds of the voters, Gillard was placed at the centre of the exercise because she took over as leader, and has inherited the halo effect of this mistrust.

The alternative to the market leader

Tony Abbott, on the other hand, is playing a smart game. He knows that the government is a bit on the nose, so he is in a perfect position to create an “imagined” existence of what might happen if he was in government.

Despite polling suggesting that most Australians don’t really like him, our assessment of Abbott as the alternative PM is in relation to the reality of the current PM. In other words, Abbott is able to conjure up a surfeit of problems with the government, and then create the fantasy of what he will do to fix it, whereas Gillard has to work in the real world.

In 2007, when Kevin Rudd was in opposition, he had a similar advantage to Abbott, in that voters had lived with the reality of John Howard for 11 years, whereas Rudd was all about the fantasy. When Kevin07™ said to the Australian people, “I’m offering the Australian public new leadership, both to help working families under financial pressure and new leadership for a plan for our country’s future,” he was offering something abstract, different, and just a little bit exciting.

When contrasted with the desperate reality of John Howard and the Coalition clinging to power, Kevin Rudd’s fantastical story was something voters wanted to believe, and many did. For quite some time.

Yes, he did sell himself well, but ultimately people voted for Rudd because they trusted him more than they trusted Howard. The other stuff, such as Kevin07™, was simply a means of creating a psychological shortcut to the “idea” of Kevin Rudd.

Getting the trust back

So, contrary to Andrew Wilkie’s sage advice, it is no longer a case of the ALP “selling” itself better. It is about wrenching back some trust in the idea of the Labor Party’s heavily eroded brand.

An advertising or sales campaign is unlikely to do that. We know from research in psychology that rather than processing all new information independently and rationally, people adapt and interpret new information through the prism of their current views. Things have already gone too far, and voters will view any promotional campaign with suspicion.

What has to happen is the government has to rebuild trust in the ALP brand, and its survival is built upon trust and consistency. Indeed, because trust in the brand has been so eroded, even when the ALP tries to promote a seemingly sensible new idea or policy, voters simply view it with distrust, and distinguish it as a desperate attempt to hold on to power.

So how do you regain that trust? (I know… I’m starting to sound like Rudd)

Ultimately, a successful brand is one that has a consistent and compelling story. Something that allows people to understand the essence of what the branded product stands for.

Unfortunately, the Labor Party is a victim of its own clever strategy from 2007. As I wrote back then, about another party and another time (and for the purposes of this exercise, simply replace Howard with Gillard, and Rudd with Abbott):

“Many Australians perceive (whether it’s true or not), that Howard (Gillard) simply wants to hold on to power for the sake of it, rather than offering anything new to the electorate. The party is desperately trying to take control of the agenda, but it might be the case that Rudd (Abbott) has created his own inertia, and if you understand the reverse mere exposure effect, you will see that the more the electorate perceives that Rudd (Abbott) is going to be the next PM, the more likely it is that they will vote for him. The key question on the lips of all Australians is:

What does the Liberal (Labor) party stand for?“

If the Labor Party can answer this question and then explain it (predominantly through its actions, rather than advertising campaigns), consistently, respectfully and incrementally to the Australian people, they may well be able to resurrect trust in the ALP brand, and combat the fantastical Tony Abbott and his magical Coalition.

~

This article was originally published at The Conversation.

Abbot, already under the pump, having taken over the ministry at short notice, admits to his minders that he has struggled to find the time to watch the 10-minute video summary, and asks them to provide him with a “précis of the précis”.

I was reminded of this scene as I watched the desperate scramble among media outlets to summarise Wayne Swan’s fourth budget this week.

Very few of us would have watched Swan’s 3000 word summary of his budget, broadcast live from 7:30pm on ABC TV on Tuesday. I haven’t checked the ratings numbers, but I am probably safe in assuming that it was outrated by “Masterchef Australia” (Ten), “Australia’s Got Talent” (Seven), “Customs” (Nine) and maybe even “Insight ” (SBS).

Even fewer would have gone to www.budget.gov.au and downloaded the full budget papers, or maybe even the key budget document, Budget Paper 1: Budget Strategy and Outlook (all 384 pages of it).

Don’t get me wrong, this is not a criticism of the attention span of the modern Australian, nor is it a discourse on the shallowness of the media. But it is a reflection on the capacity of humans to process complex and detailed information.

And yet, we are all expected to form an opinion, and espouse our views on the budget and how it will affect our lives.

So, if all of us struggle to get our heads around a more-than-1000 page document, where do our opinions come from?

Like most things in life, people simply don’t have the time, capacity, or inclination to engage at a deep, considered and thoughtful level with the detail of something such as a national budget.

So, those who are interested (and the numbers will be small) will be drawn towards information that either directly affects them or their wider family, or their perspective will be moved in a particular direction by what they consider to be authoritative sources.

Many people will use a suite of media outlets – which will ostensibly conform to their particular worldview – to help comprehend how something as nuanced and detailed as a budget will influence their lives.

Although we are becoming more comfortable with using new media, such as Twitter and blogs, even these sources are heavily reliant on what might be termed mainstream, or “old” media for authoritative analysis.

And the fact that we have access to more information doesn’t necessarily mean that we are more analytical. Our capacity to process and reflect has not evolved or increased as quickly as the surfeit of information that is currently available to most of the population. If anything, when we feel overwhelmed, we are more likely to return to material that offers simplicity, regardless of its veracity.

That said, much of the reporting in our mainstream media aspires to be thoughtful, critical, and detailed. But because of time and editorial constraints, the majority of the stories about the budget (and other subjects) are condensed, massaged and moulded around particular themes or stories that will appeal to that media outlet’s target audience.

The flipside of this is that detail and nuance will be invariably missed in the rush to publish.

So, _The Herald Sun_ leads with “Big Squeeze is all about jobs”, while across at _The Australian Financial Review_ we have the headline, “Turning deficit into surplus”.

We know from a lot of research into learning that it takes a significant amount of energy, cognitive resources and time for people, even experts, to fully comprehend the detail of information provided to us, and then to abstract that information to understand the influence of that information at both a micro (individual) and macro (broader community) level.

But because many of the stories in our newspapers and online sites have to be posted within a couple of hours of receipt of the budget papers, even the writers have to rely on what they already believe and know to develop their stories. There is little time for reflection.

Ultimately, those early stories become “the” stories, and any revisitation of the budget is viewed through the prism of those earlier reports.

Whether by intention or not, the early reports create the “anchor” by which the reader and the analyst examines all future stories about the budget.

But, there is another way. I would argue that the best opportunity for a considered, reflective response would need to be at least a couple of days (and maybe even a week) after the budget is delivered.

It gives the experts time to read and consider the detail, and also provides reflection over and above the immediate “headline” reaction – in legal parlance this might be called a “cooling-off” period.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the entire document will be read, but what it does mean is that the analyst can take the time to synthesise their ideas, and make connections free from time and space constraints.

We all know that we think better we have time to reflect, discuss and consider information, yet we accept much of the instant analysis without considering this.

But should we expect deep reflection from our commercial media?

Probably not.

They are, after all, businesses. Their major goal is to sell advertising. Newspapers need to be sold the next day, and radio and TV stations need to fill up their news, morning shows and current affairs programs. If one newspaper didn’t lead with a budget wrap-around, it simply means that they will miss out on sales.

But there is some hope.

In theory, the best opportunity for a considered, thoughtful and balanced response to the budget is the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s budget reply tonight.

If Tony Abbott’s aim is to provide analysis and a critical perspective on the budget for the benefit of the Australian population, then we should expect thoughtful, reflective and considered analysis that highlights problems in the budget and offers solutions.

One might even argue that a real leader should attempt to step outside the concept of opposition, per se, and offer, as much as possible, an objective and impartial response.

If, however, Mr Abbott’s aim is simply to criticise the government, force an election, and by extension get into government, then we can expect a reply that is mostly about criticism, little about hope and vision, and reliant on what might lead the headlines the next day.

My hope is that Tony Abbott can show some of the intellectual rigour absent in the fictional Hugh Abbot, and respond to more than a précis of the précis.

But in the likely words of Malcolm Tucker, “I’m not holding my f***ing breath”

There are a couple of key questions that arise out of this topic:

Is the current regulatory system adequate in ensuring that consumers make appropriate choices and what exactly is an appropriate choice?

• Where do consumers get information from, and how do they process it?
• How can understanding consumer behaviour assist policy makers in government and business to help people make better decisions?
• Where does marketing fit into the way consumers make choices?
• Do we need something beyond disclosure to assist retail investors to make the right choices?

My plan is to look at these questions in three parts. The first part, which follows, will be a quick examination of the philosophical foundations of our current fixation with systems.

The second part, which will be published in a week, is an attempt to explain some basic theories of psychology, marketing, culture and decision-making.

And Part Three will be an attempt to plant the seeds of a conversation about how we reconsider the frame with which we approach consumer protection, regulation, and better decision-making.  However, I don’t plan to go the usual path of offering a few pithy tactical responses or quick fixes. What I want to consider is a couple of broad concepts, and try to explain how mastery of concepts, can help us to make better policy, consumer and even business decisions.

I want to start by taking a broad view. Of consumer behaviour. Of economics. Of business. And of regulation.

And of systems, in general.

I do have to start by laying my cards on the table.

I do have some concerns about the concept of regulation, at least contemporary interpretations of it.

That said, I don’t have a problem with protecting consumers, or of regulation, or legislation, or laws.

My major issue is more about the current interpretation and nature of much regulation. I worry that so much of the legal system is built around reacting to negative outcomes. I’m happy to be corrected, but as a consumer researcher and advocate, the impression I get is that the focus of much regulation is either at the point-of-sale, or related to redressing problems post-purchase.

But it does concern me that regulation tends to be reactive and reductive – focusing in on specific, often individual problems, and then assuming rationality, a desire for utility and an assumption of the operation of logic on the part of the consumer, the legal process, and even the provider.

When it comes to regulation and legal processes, I am often a bit perplexed by how we assume that life is rational and objective.

It’s a big ask, but we need our politicians, and those in the regulatory world, to actually question the “shape” of much regulation. My implication, obviously, is that the current frame is inadequate.

Social philosopher Zygmunt Baumann argues that, “We desperately need a new framework, one that can accommodate and organise our experience in a fashion that allows us to perceive its logic and read its message, heretofore hidden, illegible, or susceptible to misreading.”

To change the way that we talk, and think, about regulation.

To question the underlying ideology, and to examine whether the current regulatory system is inadequate, at a macro-level, to address the complexity of a world that keeps changing faster than our ways of thinking and talking about it can adapt.

But until we address the view that we are rational, utility seeking beings, we won’t be able to recast our thinking.

And we will have to actually question some of the foundations upon which the legal and regulatory system is built upon before we can even begin to offer solutions.

But, first we have to understand how we got here.

Rationality, the Consumer and the Law

Because we have become enamoured with modernism, economics, science, and managerialism, I think we expect too much of seemingly rational systems, such as laws and policy, which in their current form, tend to intervene after the fact, which results in a constant lag effect.

Philosopher John Ralston-Saul describes the dominant power system in the West as being Platonist, “[a] system which functions on highly developed levels of structure and law – [a] school of pure rationality and fear of the undefined and doubt”. These rational systems take on a form of homeostasis, in that they regulate their internal environment, and attempt to maintain a stable and constant condition by restricting the influence of external forces. This internal focus also means that systems are unable to communicate with other systems, because protecting the integrity of the system is a critical component of its efficiency. To some degree, the systems are so internally focused and structured that they are unable to adapt to variables that are not input into the system.

But there are clear historical precedents. The Age of Enlightenment (or Age of Rationalism) came about as a rejection of the divine right of Kings, and a rebellion against the orthodoxy and dominance of religious authority as the controlling force in life. At this time, the intellectual and philosophical developments aspired towards rational discourse, personal judgment, liberalism and the scientific method. And, to some degree, this was very much an enlightened perspective. What the rationalists were rejecting was simply another system – religion – which had, and still has, the potential to be just as circuitous, self-supporting, and pernicious as any management or “scientific” system.

In effect, this shift morphed into a variety of 20th century movements and ideological beliefs. The faith in rationality, systems (including the preeminence of the market as a means of governing the flow of capital), government as protector, and neo-liberalism, are all artefacts of The Age of Enlightenment.

This focus is understandable, because it is a natural instinct to seek simple, “silver bullet” responses, and systems have the appearance of providing simple, rational, and clearly defined answers to many issues.

However, the underlying foundations of the Age of Enlightenment have been debased by modern interpretations of rationalism, and systems based around efficiency and short-term gain, rather than the acceptance of curiosity, creativity, and skepticism as a means of furthering society.

This is because systems and contemporary interpretations of rationality are based upon a foundation of reductionism and efficiency.  The major issue here is that any system, whether it is a religious system, a monarchical system, an institution, a legal system, or an ideological system, works on a principle of what Gideon Haigh refers to as “near-rightness” – it works okay as long as we assume that the inputs are also rational.

But the moment you throw humans into the system, we experience something that is not necessarily rational.

And you will notice that I resist using the word irrational, because of its negative connotations. But we have to accept that we are not rational, most of the time. And there is a good reason for this (which I will discuss in Part Two).

In no way am I suggesting that we should not have rules, laws, and regulations to protect our citizens, and maintain control and appropriate behaviour. Nor am I suggesting that we should not have boundaries, policies and processes in business and in society. Boundaries are just as important as freedoms when developing ideas.

So, my next step then, is to give you some examples of how we are more complex than we think, and the most obvious or logical assumptions about what or why we do what we do are often flawed.

(This is an edited extract of a speech given at the ASIC Summer School, in February, 2011) 

[Listen to an interview about the topic on Radio Australia]

So, if we are serious about reducing the number of smokers amongst our population, the removal of branding, logos and promotion on cigarette packages is a small step in the right direction.

The role of branding and, more broadly, marketing has never been about making-non customers of a product become instant customers. The process of marketing is more subtle and complex than assuming that the only thing marketers need to do is show a couple of ads, and then sit back and wait for the customers to buy their products.

It’s the same with trying to get smokers to change their behaviour. The process is incremental, rather than immediate.

Marketing is more than advertising. All marketing activity relies heavily on a range of tactics to move you toward purchasing particular products and brands. In 2008, marketing professors Janet Hoek, Phillip Gendall and Jordan Louviere presented a paper at the Australia and New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference where they said that “tobacco brand imagery functions via respondent conditioning, where brand names, colours and other imagery become paired with psychological and emotional attributes. These peripheral cues act as heuristics that do not require systematic processing, but are implicitly relied on by smokers to move from their actual self to their desired self.”

That said, for any “persuasive” technique to work, we already have to be goal-oriented. In other words, for a smoker to be converted into a non-smoker (or vice-versa), there has to be an initial desire for that behaviour before marketing activity will work.

The problem we encounter is that the factors that lead to that desire are also quite complex. That desire to change can be influenced by a whole bunch of factors, but perhaps one of the strongest motivator is when a behaviour becomes normalised.

In 1945, 72 per cent of Australian men were smokers. If nearly everybody around you is a smoker, then taking up smoking is difficult to resist. But when Robert Menzies’ government introduced a voluntary tobacco advertising code for television in 1966, and then the Fraser government introduced legislation that banned cigarette advertising in 1976, the normalisation of non-smoking began.

With the introduction of smoke-free public sector workplaces in the late 80s, and private industry in the 90s, it has become more and more difficult for people to smoke, and for new consumers to take up smoking. This is not just because it has been banned in work and public places, but also because of the social pressure that comes with the removal of smoking from everyday life. In 2007, 21 per cent of men and 18 per cent of women were smokers.

The introduction of plain paper packaging removes the capacity of the cigarette companies to brand their product. On its own, it is unlikely to make hard-core smokers give up (I do find it hilarious when news programs ask smokers if they will now give up smoking because of the new packaging), but as part of the continuing shift that discourages smoking in general, what we are observing is simply another kink in the marketing armour. Having been banned from undertaking any advertising, the major concern of the tobacco companies is that they are running out of promotion options.

And this is where the narrative becomes a bit silly.

On one hand, the cigarette companies are saying that the removal of branding will have no effect on consumer behaviour, while on the other they are fighting to maintain the branding on their cigarette packaging. Although, they argue that there is no evidence that the plain packaging will have any impact on smokers, there is rigorous research that suggests otherwise. Since 2005, a number of studies in the area of consumer behaviour have shown that generic packaging of cigarettes stimulate cessation attempts and deter smoking initiation.

Perhaps the tobacco companies only read research that they commission.

But there is also a bit of a strange contradiction in their arguments. If packaging (plain or otherwise) doesn’t influence consumer behaviour, why are they threatening legal action against the government so they can keep their branding? What’s the point? If it’s not important, and doesn’t contribute to the corporate bottom line, then they shouldn’t be spending shareholder dollars fighting it.

But the tobacco companies have given $5 million to underpin the Alliance of Australian Retailers to fight the proposals. Their arguments that the proposals infringe international trademark and intellectual property laws also seem a little desperate.

The reason is plain – packaging does influence consumer behaviour, and the tobacco companies knows this. They are just not able to admit it.

But, then again, the tobacco industry has always struggled to say it like it is.