It’s comfortable, it’s idiosyncratic and it can make people feel important.
These are the forces leading twentysomethings to frequent entertainment haunts, stores and restaurants closer to home more often, reports Irma Zandl, a trendspotter and night crawler who specializes in the attitudes, tastes and lifestyles of youths and young adults.
A preference for “easygoing bars” and an aversion to VIP lists, seen as “not being worth it,” emerged in interviews of 500 21- to 29-year-olds conducted throughout the second half of 2006 by Zandl’s marketing consultancy, The Zandl Group. Equally off-putting, the group said, are $20 cocktails, nightlife scenes that start around 11 p.m. and bouncers that may put a quick end to an outing.
Local settings, in contrast, often serve up a sense of ease. “It’s not a big effort. You don’t have to make plans, dress up, and maybe you’ll get in, maybe you won’t,” Zandl noted. “You may know a bartender, you may get free drinks, there may be other people you know there.”
In a global marketplace marked by a sense of sameness, one antidote is for people to gather in local venues and shop locally, observed Marian Salzman, executive vice president and director of strategy at JWT. “Local is family, it’s where you need to be,” she said. “There’s a real desire to be part of a small, manageable community where you know other people.”
“It makes you feel that as a customer, you matter. That, to me, is what local is really about,” Zandl offered, naming Kitchen Club, Cafe Habana and Bloomingdale’s SoHo store as among her favorites in proximity to her downtown Manhattan business and home. “Also, there’s more interest in shopping in more local places — like Bloomingdale’s SoHo store for me,” she added. “It’s smaller, more curated. Having my own salesperson is a big deal; she calls me.”
As a result of such dynamics, trendspotter Salzman, for one, anticipates people will increasingly place a premium on items identified with a specific locale, such as maple syrup from Montpelier, Vt., or pecans from Cameron, S.C.
It’s the antithesis of a mind-set that thrives on things being good enough. “I know I’m never going to be truly disappointed with a green tea latte and fruit and cheese plate from Starbucks. It’ll be OK,” Salzman said of chain experiences that thrive on “dulling down differences,” providing experiences without too many highs or lows. “At a little local place,” she added, “the chicken pot pie could be great or putrid, but my expectations are different.”