Saatchi & Saatchi has published research on the state of the nation in a bid to highlight imperatives for brands and businesses moving forward.
Authored by the agency’s chief strategy officer Richard Huntington, the ‘What the fuck is going on?’ report shares the findings of a deep-dive, ethnographic study that features real insight and experiences from 13 people across the UK, as well as eight cultural commentators including Jack Monroe and Nick Ferrari.
Conducted over two months, Saatchi & Saatchi went into homes across the UK, spending half a day speaking to people to find out what they really think about the state of the UK.
In unison with YouGov – surveying 1,999 people – the report found that 68% of Brits think the UK is generally in decline, while nearly three quarters (73%) believe the nation is more divided now than 10 years ago.
When participants of the survey were asked about their standard of living and how it has changed, 56% said it is actively worsening, while almost half (47%) of respondents admitted to feeling less in control of their financial lives than they did five years ago. An additional 64% are less proud of the UK than they were five years ago.
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Saatchi & Saatchi chief strategy officer Richard Huntington believes that King Charles III’s coronation was “always going to kick off a conversation around how this country runs.”
“But we wanted to go beyond the predictable headlines and find out how people actually feel about the UK,” Huntington said. “The findings of our research and conversations with real people and well-known commentators speak for themselves – there’s divide, fractures and deeply concerning realities. For us as an advertising agency, we have a responsibility to our clients and consumers to truly understand how people are feeling, but we hope that this research can do more than inform our work – it’s a cry for help by much greater powers than us.”
‘What the fuck is going on?’ is part of Saatchi & Saatchi’s Real Audience Window (RAW), a collection of tools and research created to provide a ‘deeper understanding’ of modern Britain.
