In keeping with the current trend of seeking new ways to cut costs, The Financial Times has reported that Lloyds Bank has banned all staff from travelling in the third week of each month. An initial reaction would be to suppose that the savings made would be eaten up through additional travel costs in other weeks, however this isn’t the case. Counter-intuitively, costs have fallen in the other weeks too. Overall savings in the six months since the ban was implemented have amounted to £1.5M.
It would seem that the staff at Lloyds had developed habits, that while benefitting service providers such as airlines and hotels, were adding unnecessary costs to the company in terms of both time and money. Other companies have sought to cut unnecessary costs by only allowing ‘important’ trips, but this approach is quite arbitrary. Lloyds decided that more extreme action was necessary.
So what has this got to do with marketing and advertising? In the ‘age of austerity’ what would happen if individuals or families decided to adopt a similar approach? Instead of applying an arbitrary approach to restaurant trips, take-outs, trips to the cinema or pub, they decide that for one week each month they would apply a zero-tolerance approach to treats, or even to other purchases previously regarded as ‘essentials’. It may be that habits would change and spending would naturally reduce in other weeks too. Not good news for some of us in marketing. Conversely, a marketing campaign that could instil a habit at a particular time may find that the habit naturally extends itself to other times.
Instilling consumer habits is important for marketers. Insuring that they are maintained; equally so. Food for thought perhaps. In the meantime, I’m continuing to adhere to my wife’s new found zero tolerance to buying a sandwich for lunch and taking the tin-foil off those homemade cheese and chutney sarnies.
Image by Inha Leex Hail on Flickr Creative Commons.
