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[00:00:00] The Y curve with Phil Dobby and Roger hearing.
[00:00:03] Rushing to get the last stocking fillers?
[00:00:06] Frantic to think if something your nephew might actually want has giving become too much.
[00:00:12] Are we pushed and prodded by marketing into giving the wrong things?
[00:00:16] And does all this matter more when the cost of living is such a challenge?
[00:00:20] Would we have a better Christmas if we gave presents based on value rather than price?
[00:00:24] Is it time to say bar humbug to overpriced tat? It is an issue where what hell do you get people who are either like us and have everything or else only want the most specific things that probably cost them absolutely arm and a leg. Yeah. And then if they say they want it and you give it to them, there's no surprise value. It kind of lacks a certain sound. It does. It does.
[00:01:40] Yeah.
[00:01:41] So yeah, I know how do you come out with the surprises.
[00:01:42] That's the problem.
[00:01:43] And I think part of the problem is so much is online these days.
[00:01:44] So it's like, if you've got kids, how do you get them something? Listen, I want surprises for my family. Well, they're not going to be listening to this, aren't they? Also true. Let's talk to someone who knows a lot more than we do about all this. And that's Claire McCandley, who's a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Huddersfield, and she joins us now. So Claire, I mean, there's a few things that play on there. You know, we all come out of a pandemic. So maybe our attitudes have changed slightly, but we're also in the middle of a cost of living crisis.
[00:03:02] So we don't have quite as much money to spend.
[00:03:04] So do you think we do do you think on both of those factors are attitude by people telling us things that we should be having that we would expect to be giving. I mean, that surely is still pushing us very much in the bigger, better, shinier in terms of gifts. And can we get away with, and you know, to tell me if you tell me this is fine, then that's great. Can we get away with saying to our relatives, for example, look, I just really I'm so glad
[00:04:20] to be here so much so I didn't buy you any presents this year because just your presence
[00:04:25] is a present to me and that's enough. isn't it? So I've got a great one. My mum doesn't listen to this podcast. I can tell you about this one because I've literally just bought it. So my mum, when she was very young, used to get the train up to the Lake District. In fact, during the war, she was evacuated to the Lake District, but then went there every year since. And there used to be an old railway line from Barre and Ferna said it was to Conestant, it was called the Conestant Branch Line. So bought the
[00:05:43] second hand book full of photos of the old Con and adding a little bit extra onto it that really adds
[00:07:02] value to that. It doesn't need to be expensive, but it's thought.
[00:07:05] I can hear the big stores pulling their hair But where are we going to purchase them from? Are we going to make the effort to go down to the high street? Are we going to go to John Lewis? Are we going to go to our favorite stores? Are we going to buy
[00:08:22] everything, you know, online, on Amazon, for example?
[00:08:25] Yeah, it's interesting what you's the John Lewis advertisement. That's the new starting point for Christmas. Well, I remember years ago. Do you remember Woolworths ads? No, back when there was Woolworths. When there was Woolworths, possibly before your time clip, but they went on forever. You'd have a commercial break, which might be four minutes long. And it was a four minute long Woolworths ad. I think it was, that's the wonder of Woolworths. And they used to take
[00:09:40] you, I've got a good memory for crap ads with online shopping, can you? Because there is no emotion in online shopping. It's the most clinical, depersonalised thing. Imagine that you're just looking for price. You're looking for the best price. Well, you're looking for price. You're also looking for convenience,
[00:11:00] accessibility, the process. So, you know, if you're going on Amazon by almost 9% and it's not picking back up again. So the summit gone wrong there hasn't the foot department stores and obviously it is because we've moved online. So even though they are there pushing this, you know, having a go anyway, trying to push this emotion angle, the horse is bolted in a way, isn't it? Yeah, and I think one of the problems that we're facing at the minute is a shortage in really good customer service staff. And that's
[00:12:24] really for me that's really evident when you phenomenon, and that is all over the world. They are the retail sector, like the catering sector is having difficulty getting people and the people who are wanting those jobs are wanting more money because they know this furor of them around. So in terms of gift giving, obviously, the what survives of retail on the street,
[00:13:42] on the high street, is it's desperate for them.
[00:13:45] They have to succeed at the same time, whenever we look at
[00:15:03] Christmas, the Christmas markets are all over the how did they do that year? But kids, you ask kids what they want, and they all just go, oh yeah, I don't know, just give me money. I mean, it's the most personalised thing at all.
[00:16:21] Yeah, but I think, I don't think our family is unusual in that.
[00:16:25] Do you think more of that's going on now, Claire?
[00:16:28] Yeah, you really make me think here uh... we don't know we don't have this agreement that we don't put ourselves in this awkward position but uh... you've no idea the levels of awkwardness that floating around here right now clear uh... but but yeah i mean it but then the thing is if you know what you want to avoid the question of the question you don't know i don't know i don't know what i want i don't know that's the charm isn't it you receive something you
[00:17:42] didn't know you want and that game back to your point clear you know that's the
[00:17:45] thing It's absolutely right. It's just that idea that that could happen is just absolutely heartbreaking. So that's kind of the inverse of what we're talking about. You know, you give your loved one a really basic present. It's like almost, you know, you got me worried now. Oh, yes. Not that I'm not going to fail with someone.
[00:19:04] It's just the idea of, you know, am I spending enough? I'm getting the right thing. Right. But at the same time, you're talking about innovation and maybe a lack of innovation. You know, the Kindle has been around now for a while. Book sales haven't gone down. People still like physical books. There's been a resurgence in the sale of vinyl.
[00:20:23] So that's coming back in the play.
[00:20:24] People still like receiving tangibles.
[00:21:25] something I wouldn't buy for myself, but I want presents on Christmas day. I want something to open, I want something under the tree and if I don't get that I will pray out.
[00:21:28] Yeah, because I mean experience is always very good, aren't they? Because if you buy an experience
[00:21:33] for somebody, like a ticket to a concert or something like that, then you've shown that you know that
[00:21:39] person well enough to know what sort of concert they want to go to and so they've got something to
[00:21:42] look forward to. But it's still not quite the same Yeah, or maybe like a treasure hunt around your garden or around your house that you have to find. That's good. You know, you can be really inventive and really kind of imaginative with this. And then you can put in the time and unthought. But that makes sense. Sounds like you certainly put the time and thought in, Clare. Are these some of the thoughts going through your head
[00:23:00] ahead of Chris?
[00:23:01] The things that have happened to me before,
[00:23:03] I've had the treasure hunt before, which is really nice.
[00:23:06] And just some ideas that, yeah, some of the things
[00:23:08] that I't do. Well, no, yeah, what you're talking about there is that all in needs and we don't want to fulfill needs. We want, we might want to fulfill the needs, we fulfill the need, but then you have to give them something else as well as that. And that's what I'm talking about, you know, socks,
[00:24:20] clothes, things like that.
[00:24:22] I think Christmas is an opportunity to give people the things
[00:24:24] that they need, but you also want to give them something
[00:24:27] extra as well. can I buy my dad and you see something, as you say, like a kitchen item. And it's like, I can make that work. I don't wanna buy it. They don't want it, but I have to give them something for Christmas. And there's, you know, there must be a pile of unwanted gifts that just, I don't know, sit in a box and we're sitting in a corner somewhere. And that's, think, a problem. How do we get rid of these things? Where did they go?
[00:25:40] Are they going to the charity shop?
[00:25:42] You know, what do we do with these things?
[00:25:43] That people don't want?
[00:25:44] What do we do with unwanted gifts?
[00:25:45] And that pressure to buy people things isn't great. you know, someone feeling that they're appreciated. It's not easy to find that sort of thing. And you can't consciously go out and look for that. If you know what I mean, you're not, it's not like you can pick it up from a gift shop. If it's there, it's there. So, you know, what do we do with that? Do we try and think of the story first and then find the gift? Or is there something that you wanna, like maybe it's a particular anniversary coming up or maybe there's an event coming up?
[00:27:00] And so you wanna get someone a special gift to mark that.
[00:27:03] Or there's something that you can think about
[00:27:04] from your childhood that you wanna, you know,
[00:27:06] bring back into play.
[00:27:07] So-
[00:27:07] We're really sort of making out that gift giving is hard. less, but it is good for the planet. It does look like, and I wonder whether this is now, we've set off a trend with the pandemic and then inflation since. But if we, the volume of goods, ignoring petrol costs in the latest retail numbers from the Office have that conversation, maybe have a conversation before Christmas and say, look, we'll not do this this year or you don't get under pressure or do secret Santa, do something like that so that you're not feeling that overwhelmed and pressured to buy somebody something. I've got quite the skips in the past, which I'm sure have absolutely no value
[00:29:42] to the person and no utility and they've probably landed in a charity shop shop or elsewhere where we've actually thought about stuff rather than just buying commodity sitting on a shelf. So I mean John Lewis, thanks for putting the thought of buying an emotionally charged gift in our mind. We just probably won't be buying it from you. But thanks for the thought. And thanks for joining us, Claire. It's been great. Yeah, I hope you have a good Christmas, maybe get whatever it is you want. Oh, thank you. Around the tree. Thank you very much. Thanks very much. And you know, it is starting to
[00:31:02] feel a bit more like Christmas now. It's mean, the mind is people going, you know, we need to catch up on all of this, but really 80 episodes.
[00:32:20] That's, you know, like 60 hours worth.
[00:32:22] A taste for a book.
[00:32:23] Yeah, so listen to this and then we're all on the same page
[00:32:24] and we can start the new year at the same place.
[00:32:27] So there we are.