Continuing with our redundancy and recession insights series, the challenging economic situation has inevitably changed the nation's attitudes towards money and resources. With such sage mottos as: "Keep Calm and Carry On" harking back to World War II lingering on peoples' lips and printed on t-shirts; It's very hard to resist the jolly camaraderie of doing one's bit.
We've taken a closer look at two thrifty search trends emerging on Bing using the Microsoft Advertising Intelligence Tool.
Dig for Victory: Grow Your Own
Top celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall do it; even L'Enfant Terrible Gordon Ramsey has been known to rear pigs and lambs on his back lawn at home for his F-Word TV show.
One motive for this new love affair with horticulture is the heightened awareness of how much our food really costs, in monetary, ethical and environmental terms. Families baulked at the un-relenting inflation increases on food throughout 2008 which were connected to excessive food packaging and the air miles used to freight food in from around the world. (Source: BBC News). It was also the realisation that the staple foods that we love such a potatoes, carrots and salad greens could be cheaply and easily produced in enough quantities to feed the average family from just a small patch of earth at the bottom of the garden.
As families up and down the country set up their own small holdings in the style of classic 70s sitcom The Good Life, leading DIY retailer B&Q reported in March 2009 the sharp increase in sales of chicken coops and runs as more people embraced the home grown theme and started to rear their own chickens.
One trend we've seen emerging on Bing is the interest in allotments and gardening:
Waste Not, Want Not
Ever heard the saying: "One man's rubbish is another man's gold"? That is quite literally the case for one business model that is thriving online. Pawnbrokers and gold dealers are currently reaping the benefits from the elevated gold price, which hit a high of $1,065 per ounce in October 2009, due to people favouring tangible assets such as gold over the less unpredictable stocks and shares in these financially turbulent times. (Source: BBC News). Such gold merchant companies as CashMyGold and SellMyGold4Cash are appealing to the "Waste not, want not" mentality engrained within the British psyche and are encouraging the public to scour their homes to find their forgotten pots of gold (rings, trinkets and jewellery) which they slip into a special jiffy bag that then gets posted, weighed, valued and eventually traded for cash.
Like gold, another commodity in current high demand is old mobile phones, or more to the point the precious metals and chemicals contained within them. With many companies such as Mazuma Mobile and Envirofone following the same business model as the gold merchants as they transform unwanted old mobiles into cold hard cash.
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Thanks Kate