Sentient Insight: the business blog for consumer psychology and consumer marketing

We’ve been hearing a lot about a group of people we’ve dubbed the Foul Weather Frugals (that’s a Sentient TM, btw). FWFs are folks who have few (or no) inherent values around conserving money but are tightening the belt now out of necessity and fear. Maybe they’ve lost their job, or their ARM just increased and they’re having difficulty making mortgage payments – whatever the reason they’ve stopped eating dinner out, buying new cars, and shopping department stores as frequently as they once did.  This behavior is justified in the current economic climate- but we wonder how sustainable it is to a group of folks for whom frugality is a new notion.

Social media marketing is positioned as a true game-changer, yet questions swirl around who is being reached, what the actual impact is and how ROI can be measured. Sites such as Facebook, MySpace and, especially, Twitter allow marketers to access “real-time” trends and feedback. There are numerous advantages to using social media for market research and real-time adjustments to marketing campaigns.