The construction industry forecast at a glance

If like me a juicy stat gets you all wide eyed and interested, then you’ll understand how I felt yesterday when the latest construction industry forecast landed on my desk.

Whilst I’m a stickler for good bit of technical detail, I do believe that sometimes it’s just not necessary and this is definitely one of those occasions. I could probably rewrite the entire forecast into a quarter of its current pages and you’d still walk away well informed and a bit depressed at the state of the economy, so hell, let’s go one step further and list it in bullet points!

Here are the bits that I found most interesting. Be warned, it doesn’t make for pleasant
reading.

· Six months ago the UK economy was forecast to increase by 2.5%, but this was revised down to just 0.7% in time for us to see in the New Year – apparently that’s still optimistic

· Unemployment is set to rise by another 2.8million this year which is pretty scary considering household disposable income has fallen for five consecutive quarters already

· The construction industry is set to fall by 5.2% this year and will remain flat throughout 2013. It’s not all bad news though, it’s forecast to grow by 3.8% in 2014 followed by 4.6% in 2015. This will most likely be the start of a healthy year on year increase because 2015 is the year in which 85% of the £4.7 billion pound construction industry ‘boost’ promised by the Coalition Government will become available

· Commercial construction has been propped up by the Olympic development in central London but we’ll see a 5% fall when that ends this year. This sector will also be hit by the administration of Battersea Power Station which will wipe out the planned £4.5 billion regeneration

· Construction in the education sector is likely to fall by 35% before 2014 despite a £1.2 billion investment this year. Half of which will be spent on building 100 free schools

· The construction of healthcare facilities will fall by 40% before 2014

· Private housing construction will increase by 2% in 2012 and a boost of 29% is forecast for between 2013 – 2015

· Rail construction is expected to rise by a whopping 90% between now and 2015 and construction within the energy generation sector will increase threefold

Once my cuppa had gone cold and I’d defaced my copy of the forecast to within an inch of its
life with notes and highlighters, I sat and thought for a moment.

I certainly didn’t feel the suffocation of impending doom like I did a few years ago, but don’t get me wrong, we’re not out of the woods just yet. It looks like we’ve got another two years to get through before things really start to pick up economically.

What’s the answer? Kettle on, heads down and move forward. We’ll get there.

Another bashing for the Greeks - in the kitchen

The WPR team enjoyed an insightful update on the Eurozone crisis this week from our Head of B2B PR, Tom Leatherbarrow. After picking myself up from the misery of impending doom, I wondered whether the latest news events were having any affect on food and drink markets. And it threw up some fascinating results.

As you might expect (and like most markets), it seems UK food exports to Greece are on the decline – down 14% YOY in September. But interestingly, the troubles in Greece also seem to be influencing eating habits on our own shores too; sales of chilled Greek ready meals in the UK fell 7% in the year to September according to Kantar Worldpanel.

It may not all be George Papandreou’s fault but the lethargy for lamb koftas and moussaka is in contrary to healthy increases enjoyed by Italian, French and Spanish chilled ready meals. And you fear there is worse to come for the Greeks.

The sweet smell of scent marketing

I read a fascinating piece from Christopher White in the Independent this week about the use of smell to promote products and reinforce brands, particularly when it comes to food and drink.

Apparently smell is fast becoming the third sensory tactic in marketing alongside old favourites sight and sound. The article told how a mini-mart in America saw coffee sales rise by 300% after it started pumping the aroma of fresh coffee beans into the store, and how the use of cinnamon smells where cinnamon buns are on sale makes people more likely to buy them. Even the new M&Ms megastore in London pumps in a smell of fresh chocolate to tempt customers into a purchase.

As White puts so well, scent marketing compares well to “fast-food outlets displaying photographs that bear no resemblance at all to the limp lettuced burgers actually on sale.” I’m no expert but I would suggest it won’t be long before this trend moves out of retail locations and into our homes. Just don’t let the pet food companies get a whiff of the idea!