Gianandrea Abbate

Is the worldwide consumer global, glocal or local? It is really increasingly the inhabitant of a ‘global village’, ever more equal, standardized, serial? Certainly a process of standardization is now under way, but only for the so-called ‘advanced tercile’ of the population with characteristics, patterns of consumption and a transversal psychology which are international in outlook, and who finds fewer differences between Milan and London than between Milan and Palermo: s/he is open minded, a first adopter of new products, attracted by technology and with psychological qualities dominated by a sense of omnipotence. But, by contrast, there also exists another large percentage of the target that seeks the values of reassurance and integration into the group: these people do not want at all costs to be ahead of the pack; they prefer to be prudent and ‘followers’. And there still exists and persists also a solid percentage of so-called ‘resistants’, for whom rediscovering typical local products is a truly important motive. In short, the new market is and will increasingly become a ‘fusion’, a ‘melting pot’ of different trends, where a ‘local’ product, if it is outstanding, can also become ‘global’. An example? Ing Direct’s Orange Account.