A NEW SENSE OF OWNERSHIP

Own less, use more

Someday, we’ll look back on the 20th century and wonder why we owned so much stuff.

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Bryan Walsh  

THE RIGHT TO USE WILL PREVAIL OVER THE PROPERTY RIGHT.

83% of French respondants declare that it is more important for them to be able to use a product rather than to own it. �SRC : Obsoco 2012

3 REASONS THAT MAKE US BELIEVE IT

Chapter 1

As our purchasing power decreases, we still want to benefit from everything the consumer society has to offer. In order not to be frustrated and not to refrain ourselves, we found a solution: rethinking our consumption. We try to optimize our expenses, even when it means sharing our own goods with others and owning less, to keep on consuming as we wish to.

“ Reason n°1

THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

1/3 of the French declare that reducing their standard of living really costs them

Cetelem study on the consumption in France

It’s less about needing the money and more about being smart with what you own […] Collaborative consumption is common sense. A car can cost almost 7000$ a year to run, and the majority of car owners don’t drive their car every day.

Jonathan Clark - Directeur Executif de WhipCar�Lire l’article : h"p://on.mash.to/1cW6AP9    

2 ILLUSTRATIONS

“

Reason n°2

ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS

To reduce our impact on the environment and avoid creating useless waste, we rethink our priorities. We want to be sure that we will fully use what we buy and that we find alternate solutions to be able to temporarily use what we only need from time to time.

2 ILLUSTRATIONS

When they say they want to consume better, it will be by buying only necessary products, for 32% of the French.

Obsoco 2012

Roo Rogers - Entrepreneur & Co-Auteur « What’s mine is yours » Lire l’article : h"p://bit.ly/1eiDnvT  

The day when a consumer instinctively asks himself, while he is about to buy a car or a drill, if he really needs to own this object knowing he could borrow one from his neighbour, the Earth will feel better.

Reason n°3

THE WEB ERA

“ With the Internet, our sense of value has shifted. The ease of exchanging and sharing online, for free, has permitted us to extend our access to stuff, by finding solutions for owning with less money, or by swaping tips and objects online.

2 ILLUSTRATIONS

62% of the French declare that, in the coming years, they’ll be more willing to share and exchange products and services, rather than to pay for them.

Etude Cetelem sur la consommation 2013

Rachel Botsman - auteure sur la consommation collaborative, co-auteure « What’s mine is yours » Lire l’article : h"p://bit.ly/18WldCN  

The sharing behaviors, through sites such as Flickr and Twitter, are becoming a second nature online and being applied to offline areas of our everyday lives.

MANIFESTATIONS ON THE CONSUMER SIDE

Chapter 2

Findings […] consistently show that money only makes us happy to a point. What’s more, purchasing experiences makes us happier than purchasing material stuff

Simon Smith  

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It is impossible to talk about the new sense of ownership without talking about the second-hand market. 60% of the French like buying second-hand and are not looking for owning the newest things at all costs. We’d rather be smart about our purchases. But, beyond this mass phenomenon, a range of new practises are emerging and disrupting our consumption habits, to free us from the constraints of property and permit us to multiply experiences.

Manifestation n°1

NEW MODELS OF CONSUMPTION

“ *Obsoco 2012

1. RENTING EVERYTHING We can rent everything from others (cars, tools, high-tech, leisure products, household appliances, luxury goods, etc.), for the time we need it, at a price set by the renter.

This website (nowadays extremely popular) permits us to rent flats all over the world, for short term stays, directly from individuals. Its business model is in direct competition with hotels and B&Bs.

Airbnb

Some other examples

ZILOK A car, a vacation house, or luxury products, we can rent anything for a day on Zilok. We can choose to do it through the website or to coordinate everything with the renter by phone (if he left his contact details upon registration).

RENT THE RUNWAY The website permits us to exchange and rent luxury fashion goods (dresses, bags, accessories), allowing new populations to access products from a normally very exclusive market.

MOBYPARK Parking in the city is always a problem. This platform permits us to exchange with people in order to rent a parking spot from a person, or to park at their home, for the duration of our stay.

2. SUBSCRIPTIONS We now have the possibility to pay for a monthly subscription to benefit from an illimited access to almost everything: cultural goods, objects collections, collective dressings, services, etc.

By paying a monthly fee, we can access a large database of audiovisual content (Netflix) or music (Spotify).

Netflix & Spotify

Some other examples

LACQUEROUS For 15$ a month, we can receive a selection of 3 nail polishes, according to our preferences. Each month, we send back the 3 we used and receive 3 new nail polishes to test.

SURFAIR This service allows us, for a 1695$ subscription, to access an illimited number of flights between Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and San Francisco.

TIE SOCIETY On this American website, we can choose a package (to access to 1, 3, 6 or 10 goods per month), then indicate which objects we’d like to receive. We use them for the time we wish and send them back at the end of the month, in exchage for new products we’d like to try.

3. BACK TO BARTER We can swap all sorts of objects with other people, for a limited time or not. These exchanges, without financial transaction, found a new energy thanks to the web.

This French platform allows people to exchange all sorts of things. We exchange something that we offer to the other members of the community or we exchange with the credits earned according to the value of the products we propose for exchange on the website .

Pretachanger.fr

SWAP STYLE The platform permits to swap clothing and accessories, but also cosmetics and cultural products like books and DVDs. We can also sell our stuff.

Some other examples

CONSOGLOBE By registering on this website, we list the products we’re ready to exchange and what we would like to get for them. We can then exchange product for product, or product for points gained according to the value of the goods we made available to the community.

PAPER BACK SWAP The website allows us to give and exchanges books with the members of the online community.

4. TRADING SERVICES AND COMPETENCIES We are looking for and offering our competencies, with or without financial compensation, according to our needs and what we are able to do.

The website allows people to make their skills available and to find freelance «  jobs ». For example, TaskRabbit permitted thousands of people to get back on their feet after being fired, when they could not find anything on the job market (70% of participants of the website were previously unemployed or underpayed).

Task Rabbit

UN VOISIN EPATANT Exchange one hour of ironing against an access to a washing machine, it’s the purpose of this French website, connecting people for services (ironing, cleaning, etc.) and occasional objects exchange.

Some other examples

TROC’HEURES The platform, a Castorama initiative, permits to swamp hours of painting or of home improvement for hours of gardening or housewrecking. Everything can be exchanged without financial compensation.

COOKENING/BEYONG CROISSANT Cookening recently bought Beyond Croissant to develop its « eat surfing » offer (eating at strangers places to share one meal). We can all register, choose the meal we want to attend and go there to eat with strangers, for free or for a price.

5. CO-CONSUMPTION There are two ways to co-consume: enjoying a good owned by another person in exchange for money or sharing a property acquired with several individuals.

The French website covoiturage.fr allows people to carpool to go anywhere in France, for reduced costs. When travelling becomes a luxury, sharing cars is now an interesting option to save money for our trips.

Bla Bla Car

LUXURY FRACTIONAL GUIDE Luxury goods aren’t accessible to a lot of people, co-property is thus a good option to access them, when we can’t afford buying them separately. A Spanish luxury villa or a private jet, this website is the place to buy goods collectively.

Some other examples

AUTOLIB’/VELIB’ The two French services for co-consumption (one for bikes, one for electric city cars) permit parisians to travel the city fast and cheap. No parking problems anymore, no gas fees, no maintenance: the bikes and cars are shared by the subscribers and charged by the hour or the half-hour. Private companies are also proposing similar services, with similar operating models, like ZipCar in the USA.

DIY FRACTIONAL The website connects people wishing to share a property, in order to minimize their costs and maximize the use. Want to buy a house or a boat? You just have to look for the category of goods you’re interested in to find people to share it with.

This e-shop gives the opportunity to try, each month, different types of products by receiving samples of the « hit » products of the season, just to test or before thinking about buying the full products (which are quite expensive most of the time). Several brands offer a similar service.

Birchbox

6. EXPERIENCES WITH DISCOVERY BOXES By paying a monthly subscription, we receive boxes of full products and/or testing samples of either very expensive products or foreign ones. It’s a perfect occasion to multiply experiences for lower costs.

VIN SUBTIL BOX DECOUVERTE Vin Subtil offers us a monthly box to discover several wine samples, in order to try « grands crus » or new wines, and to taste them before adding them to our wine cellar.

Some other examples

VIP BLACKBOX This box service permits to discover exclusive products or limited editions products created by luxury brands, for a low price subscription, every three months.

DANDY BOX A men’s version of beauty box, the Dandy box offers men the possibility to receive, every two months, samples of products and accessories, as well as fashion tips, according to the lifestyle promoted by the brand.

Manifestation n°2

NEW WAYS TO CREATE

“ Influenced by the open source culture and new models of intellectual property such as Creative Commons, we are revising our conception of intellectual property and our ways to share knowledge. We freely exchange ideas, concepts, projects to stimulate and enrich each other, by working together and cooperating. This permits us to enter a new era of collaboration and to boost innovation.

1. SHARING KNOWLEDGE We have the opportunity to share our knowledge and to allow others to access it without constraints, for it to be improved, reused and reinvented. We extend access to expertise and competences online.

MOOCs ( « Massive Open Online Courses »)

For a few years in the USA and since 2012 in France, massive open online courses permit people to share and access knowledge for free, previously contained in traditional learning institutions like colleges and schools. In France, the courses offer is all gathered on one online hub.

Some other examples

GOOGLE HELPOUTS Last November , Google opened a new platform, which gives us the possibility to find help and learn new things, thanks to strangers from all around the world. Everything is possible for free or at very low prices, through Google Helpouts.

DUOLINGO The platform gives us the opportunity to learn foreign languages for free, thanks to all the members’ participation, for the translation of the words & phrases database. For each exercice, the translation given by the user is registered and permits to refine the translation, to permit other members to learn a language with accuracy.

WIKIHOUSE Knowledge on house building and on constructions is becoming more and more accessible, thanks to Wikihouse. The platform permits anyone to create and print his house plans, and to get inspiration from what is already done and proposed online.

2. CROWD FUNDING We can either collect funds or help a stranger finance their project, in all sorts of fields (artistic, entrepreneurial, etc.), with or without getting any financial compensation.

Kickstarter

On this platform, we can submit any project (in varied categories such as art, music, design, games, etc.) and can ask for the amount of money we need to realize it. Kickstarter’s users can then choose between different levels of participation, which gives them the right to receive some compensations for their investment. In 2012, more than 300 millions dollars were donated, to finance over 18 000 projects.

PRÊT D’UNION Prêt d’union is a French platform, to lend and borrow money from private indivuals. Anyone can borrow for a large range of projects (a moving, a wedding, a new car, etc.), or can lend with a guaranted return rate.

KIVA Kiva is a micro-credit platform, between particular individuals, which permits to help people from all around the world. It is crowd funding for the world’s development!

MY MAJOR COMPANY This new collective model of music production permits investors to receive royalties according the degree of popularity of the project they decided to finance. Similar models exist for video games productions, concerts organisation, etc.

Some other examples

3. FABLABS & HACKERSPACES In these dedicated spaces, we access professional material but also and above all a place for exchanging ideas. The indispensable condition is to document your work, to give free access to your research and not to work strictly by yourself.

MIT Fablab

In 2004, Neil Gershenfeld conceptualized the «  Fab Lab » and opened the first of a long serie in an American school, the MIT. He also drafted the ethic guidelines, to define the FabLabs missions and the users  ’ obligations, such as sharing one’s research and ideas with other members.

LE FACLAB Set up at the Cergy Pontoise University in France, the « FacLab » allows students as well as private individuals to access equipments to help them make their projects come true. Like all Fablabs, the goal is to exchange and to let free access to your research.

ARTISAN’S ASYLUM This center is a making space, where people can produce arts and crafts goods (wooden work, jewelry, etc.) or create technological goods. Classes are given by the members of the community, to learn how to use the tools and technics available in the space.

LE LOOP Parisian « hackerspace », the LOOP permits anyone who wants to use infrastructures to realize their projects and to exchange ideas with the community, to stimulate each other and drive innovation together, with less costs and limitations.

Some other examples

La Cantine

« La Cantine » is a co-working space specially designed to welcome digital start-ups. The goal is to push collaboration to imagine, test and realize innovative projects, in the high tech field. It is also a network, located in several cities, which encourages innovation by allowing people to meet, gather and share.

4. CO-WORKING SPACES These areas are made to facilitate exchange and collaboration. We go there to share and find new inspirations, to give and get ideas and exchange expertise, to enrich each other.

Some other examples

UNION KITCHEN This co-working space is dedicated to catering and restaurant start-ups, which don’t have enough funds to afford a place where they can cook and create. There, they can exchange tips and ideas between professionals.

HERA HUB Hera Hub is a co-working space dedicated to entrepreneur women in San Diego. This place offers services specially designed for them, to help them in managing their sometimes hectic schedules. It’s a place to share experience and ideas.

LA MUTINERIE This space offers independant workers with a place where they can come and work, where they can collaborate and exchange with professionals from different fields, to enrich their projects and access different competences freely. The place also proposes services such as networking events, office equipments, conference call boxes, etc.

THESE NEW PRACTISES ARE ALSO CREATING NEW RELATIONSHIPS.

If we first see these practises as financially advantageous, we quickly bond with the members of the community and become very close together.

It’s the end of the consumer as we know it today. In 10 years, he’ll be dead. Consuming won’t define him, he’ll become above all a « member of the community ».

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Rachel Botsman

QUOTES AND TESTIMONIALS

“ I can make money doing things I enjoy. I’ve met awesome people. I can borrow things instead of buying them […]. I’m connecting to my community, enjoying what my city has to offer, sharing my passions, and I feel like I’m making a difference. ” �Stéphanie D., Montréal

“ I am a superfan of ridesharing! I can visit my family/friends in Jutland without being economically ruined I also meet fun people on my way home.”  Mette M. Copenhague

“ By sharing my ride, i have met friends, helped others, reduced congestion, made extra money & seen parts of the city I wouldn’t have otherwise ” Hans S. Chicago

“ Sharing our spare unit has opened us up to receiving people from around the world. It’s great to feel part of a community of travelers & hosts that are working together where everyone helps everyone!” Shana S. Jérusalem

Propos recueillis sur Peers.org

IMPACT ON THE CONSUMER - BRAND RELATIONSHIP

Chapter 3

BRANDS HAVE A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY TO IMPROVE THEIR BUSINESS MODELS.

But also to be consistently closer and more open to their consumers, more human and more reactive.

You can go the way of the music industry and not see the writing on the wall – and then, when [the future] becomes a reality, hire a bunch of lawyers and fight it fruitlessly. Or your can become a partner in the revolution and enable it.

Neal Gorenflo

#1 LESS PURCHASES, MORE ACCESS To reach a consumer who is looking for paying only the value of what he really consumes and accesses, companies have to understand they can’t target higher sales at all costs. Rentals, co-consumption and access through subscription are new models that have to be integrated to make business models evolve, to make everything more accessible and find new ways to monetize production.

Leroy Merlin & home improvement tools rentals Leroy Merlin offers a service to define our tools’ need according to the home improvement projects we plan to do. The shops offer us anything we need for rent (from a drill to a jigsaw) for the time of our domestic work. Mr Bricolage (partnering with Kiloutou) and Home Depot (1 st tools retailer in the USA) offer similar services.

LOKEO - BOULANGER This platform permits people to rent household electrical goods, from a TV to a washing machine, as well as a MacBook Pro. We can temporarily rent high tech products for a reasonable price, according to our use, and we can often change. The minimum length of the rental is 18 months.

BMW DRIVE NOW BMW makes a few models of cars available to rent by the day or the month, for people who have a limited use of cars. Volkswagen (Quicar), Renault (Twizy Way) and Daimler (Car2Go) offer similar services: a revolution in the business models of car companies.

CONNECT BY HERTZ Inspired by car sharing services, Connect by Hertz offers consumers the possibility to rent a car by the hour, including gas and insurance, without paying a monthly subscription. It’s very practical for people who have a punctual need for a car!

#2 ALWAYS BRING MORE ADDED VALUE With the emergence of new consumption models, it is crucial to redefine the added value linked to products and brands. Abundant access proposed by these new models is sometimes done at the cost of serveral benefits linked to owning the product. It’s now important to highlight and create new benefits, to differentiate through the traditional offer with higher quality and the alternative consumption offer.

IKEA and their program « Give a second life to your furniture » IKEA proposes solutions to their clients to reuse and recycle their old furniture. One of these solutions consists in buying back these furniture in exchange for IKEA gift coupons. In Norway, the brand went even further and took on the role of flea market, for the campaign « Second Hand », where they advertised a selection of vintage furrniture bought from their consumers.

M&S « SCHWOPPING » Marks & Spencer gives their clients the opportunity to bring back their used clothes and to exchange them with gift coupons. It is a smart way to combine swapping and shopping, and to stimulate new purchases. Moreover, the used clothes are donated to Oxfam, which redistributes them to persons in need.

KIA & 7 YEARS GUARANTEE Kia reinvents car guarantees by offering a 7 year one (or 150000 kms), transferable to a new driver if the car is sold during the 7 years period. It’s a good way to take into account a reality of the car market: it is often bought second hand, between individuals.

VIDEO GAMES & DLC A large number of video games add value to buying a new game by integrating a code to download exclusive content online. This advantages are not transferable in the case of second hand purchases. Thus, buying new also means having an enhanced gaming experience.

#3 CO-CREATE Because nowadays lots of consumers are used to giving their opinions about everything and to contributing online, they wish to participate and collaborate with companies. Brands could gain from opening their processes and integrating consumers’ ideas, because they are a real strength for the development of companies. They know what and how they want to consume and tend to prefer brands which listen to them.

Auchan & Quirky By joining the Quirky community, people can submit their ideas for new products, vote for the ones they prefer, and buy them once they have been produced. Auchan partnered with Quirky to create and sell products that really respond to their clients’ needs and expectations.

MY STARBUCKS IDEA The coffee chain allows its consumers to propose new ideas for new beverages, new organisations or new experiences. The website is designed like a forum, where people can discuss, exchange and vote for the different ideas they prefer. The most popular ideas are analysed by the company for a potential deployment in the coffee shops.

LEGO CUUSOO On the online platform, any Lego fan can propose his idea for a new lego set. If it manages to gather 10 000 votes, his idea is reviewed by the company to see if it could be up for production. Each quarter, the best idea is chosen and produced. The creator received in compensation 1% of the revenues made thanks to his creation.

SNCF OPEN DATA SNCF is gradually freeing the access to their data and allowing commuters to submit their ideas to improve the services. Recently, an app designed to help regulate traffic in the « Transilien » was created, in cooperation with travelers, to permit them to act for the network’s punctuality. After the Bretigny incident, SNCF is thinking about opening its data further, to work on a better security for everyone.

THERE IS ONE DANGER

"SHARING WASHING" Nowadays, because they realize the importance of these new consumption models, brands multiply initiatives to integrate into the collaborative economy. But few are the ones who really engage in it. A lot of companies limit their efforts to partnering or buying a sharing economy start-up. Thus, after green washing, can we talk about sharing washing? It is not sufficient to capitalize on the successes of these new stakeholders. It is necessary to become a real contributor, capable to encourage a strong development of the sharing models, by proposing stimulating innovations and thinking about the deep expectations and needs of the consumers.

Document produced by Paola Craveiro & Mathieu Genelle

THANK YOU .o/

CONTACT US Hélène Meinerad +33 (0)6 16 72 09 46 helene.meinerad@k1.publicis.fr

Mathieu Genelle +33 (0)6 19 76 11 95 mathieu.genelle@k1.publicis.fr