The tipping point for a decision to change behaviour is the moment when the need to change becomes internalised.

 

The �yes, now� moment may be to do with deciding to buy a hybrid car, move to a smaller house, stop using plastic bags, implement a new human resources system or try a new brand of cheese � but for all of these decisions, the point of �yes, now� is the moment when the cost of change is outweighed by the perceived value to be achieved by the change.

 

And at that moment of �yes� it is an impulse � which may or may not be based on rational thought and considered research.

 

The cost of a change is relatively easy to calculate: it is the actual dollar price of the desired product, in conjunction with the time and effort expended in, for instance, installing the new system at work or the old furniture into the new accommodation, plus all the extra time when something goes wrong.

 

This is the uncertainty factor.

 

It is this uncertainty factor that makes compelling consumer change difficult as the �inventor� can�t predict the source or magnitude of that uncertainty. Similarly, whereas theoretical value can be calculated in improved performance, taste sensation or entertainment, in fact the reality may not live up to the hype or expectation. This uncertainty mitigates against change.

 

For the mature consumer it may be that personal satisfaction in a product is more important than the apparent kudos given by that product: living up to advertising statements and specifications is then of vital importance. In this regard, members of the Y-generation are reputed to be more mature than older people. Y-generation guru Peter Sheahan points out that for Gen-Y, the credibility of the product is considered highly relevant in purchasing decisions. Members of Generation Y are hot on walking the talk.  They are very anti any suggestion that they have been conned, and if the brand promise and the brand delivery don�t add up, the punters desert.  According to Teenage Research Unlimited, the trend for expenditure with Gen-Y is value for money, and prestige no longer has the same relevance as it did for previous generations.

 

The more that Gen-Y needs/wants and desires are satisfied, the more behaviours change in previous generations.

 

The compelling idea for the past decade has been that your life will be revolutionised if you 'start using', 'purchase', 'move to', and if you don�t do whatever is being suggested you are letting yourself down. But most consumers are not going to turn into Andie MacDowell simply by changing their brand of makeup, nor Elle McPherson because of new underwear.

 

With an increasingly savvy audience, advertising may be able to become more subtle � fewer exhortations - and will certainly need to be more realistic, promising what it can actually deliver.

 

This will have an extraordinary effect on industry.

 

New products fail at the rate of 40 � 90%, depending on category, and of the 30,000 packaged goods introduced in the United States each year, 70-90% have vanished within 12 months. In New Zealand, John Pinfold (Massey University) has reported that only 42.5% of new businesses survive their first five years. Of further interest is that new business owners believed their own chances of surviving the first five years was 75.7% whereas a similar venture started by somebody else had only a 52.3% chance of survival. The entrepreneurial spirit is rife for products as well as businesses, hence their ephemeral nature.

 

The answer to compelling consumer change is at least in part in more research and less advertising. Reality not hype. The first need is to identify what products or behaviours the consumer actually wants.

 

�Crowdsourcing� - the latest concept in business innovation - could be used for ideas. Crowdsourcing involves letting �people� make suggestions and has already been identified as changing the future of corporate R&D. Forward-thinking companies pose a carefully-formed problem on the web and wait for responses. It is a process that will particularly appeal to the Y-generation as it takes advantage of their self-identified creative skills and does not involve risk or seniority. The next step is thorough scrutiny.

 

Jonathan Ive, the creator of the iPod, says that to change the way people think you have to go back to the materials from which a product is made, and examine the ideas and assumptions that shape it. You have to ask what it is for, how people use it, and whether you can make the experience nicer. And then you have to pour enormous resources into seeing that through to production.

 

But this �pouring� should be based on facts, not feeling. The success of Google, for instance, is at least in part based on data. �The experimentation on the site shows that this design performed 10% better�, for instance, not �I like the way the screen looks�. Decisions based on facts not gut-feeling is one of the company�s �9 notions of innovation�.

 

If the market has identified the product, and it has been through the research and development rubric successfully, the new product should be compelling; some of the uncertainty factor will be overcome in the consumer mind, and change will follow.

 

Compelling consumer change therefore requires applying all available technologies, and the facts � on top of the superb vision.

 

 

Jacqueline Rowarth is the Director of the Office for Environmental Programs at The University of Melbourne