Companies see C class as way out of the crisis
Folha de S. Paulo - 03/08/2009
Pointed by specialists as the most resistant share of the market concerning the effects of the crisis, C class has been the target of a new wave of products and specific brands launched to cater to this segment. Many investments were planned before the crisis, but the companies decided to go ahead with them because they are betting in the consumption capacity of this group and in the migration of the consumption of A and B classes to more popular items. The unprecedented survey, made by the McCann Erickson agency, which investigates the trends of consumption in the C class, shows these consumers are not seeking access to goods any more, they now seek quality improvement. One example is food. For 38% of the one thousand families surveyed in São Paulo, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre and Goiânia, the nutritional value is the most important item in a product. For 82% of the people surveyed, nutritive food is that food made at home, where 76% have their main meal, dinner. The research, which will be released this week, also shows that the holding of electric and electronic devices is associated, by 82% of the people polled, to the leisure of the entire family. According to Haroldo Torres, director of the Data Popular institute, C class has greater recovery capacity in a crisis setting. He emphasizes that A class was affected twice by the global crisis, both with the loss of job vacancies in executive jobs and with the losses in the Stock Exchange and investment funds. That explains the new wave of launchings aimed at C class, regardless of the crisis. "Who sells to A and B classes has a 20 million people market. Even if C class suffers with the crisis as well, it is a four times bigger group. Knowing how to sell to them is a matter of survival", says the retail adviser Roberto Meir. It is curious that no company, traditionally focused on A and B classes, wants to cater the C class through its main brand. "We cannot run the risk of sending the wrong message to our A and B class public", affirms Ronaldo Marcolin, commercial director of Única, manufacturer of the Dell Ano closets, which has just launched a cheaper line, New.