Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to KEYS, our monthly broadcast to our clients all around the world. It's still January, so I think I can wish you all a very happy new year from everyone at Ipsos. We hope we can support you in whatever you're looking to do over the next 12 months and beyond. For today, because it is the new year, we thought we would start to think about different visions of the future, whether we're talking about the next few weeks, the coming year, or indeed further ahead than that. To help us do that, I'm delighted to be joined by our expert panelists for today's session. We have Tayo, who is in Lagos, Nigeria, who's gonna be helping us understand how Nigeria is weathering the storm.
We have Mallory, who is in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the United States, who's gonna help us understand better the state of America. We have Mike over the border in Ottawa, Canada, who's gonna be helping us think about what happens best next, or maybe what happens best, with some scenarios for the future. And he's gonna take us back in time, before we dive into that, future moment. So thank you for that in advance, Mike. I'm talking to you from London, in the U.K., not London, Ontario. And I'm gonna be thinking about public opinion, public attitudes, and what that means for both behaviors and indeed, sentiment of people around the world, whether they're consumers, customers, or citizens.
I'm particularly gonna try and think about what the next 12 months might need, might have in store. Questions? I hope you have them. Please put them in the chat box, and we've got time at the end to ask our panelists your questions, and we can follow up anything afterwards. I should also mention that all of the slides that we're gonna present to you will be available to you after the webinar as well.
So just to kick off, I've tried to think about public opinion, thinking about the public opinion in 2024, and I've just drawn out six, six questions that we at Ipsos are going to be following this year, because in some way it feels that they will help us better understand the overall story, wherever it is in the world that any of us are sitting. So these are our six questions. We start with the economy. Mallory will also touch on that in a moment. But will we be feeling better at the end of the year than we do now?
But what we can say at the moment is that at the start of the year, consumer confidence, which can be a tricky one to measure, and we found it zigzagging all through the last 12 months, we are finding some better numbers in consumer confidence in Europe, for example, which is often the capital of pessimism. We're also finding, when we look at the year-on-year change, some better numbers overall in many markets around the world. Our predictions survey, that we do every year, does find some more optimism than we had for example, last year, although it isn't still at levels that we were seeing during COVID times. And we have questions about the optimism that we're spotting. It does seem to be slightly guarded. We still have very high proportions of people worrying about interest rates, inflation, unemployment.
Now, they may or may not be right in those predictions, but it does suggest a rather muted mood. If I'm thinking about cost of living, in particular, out today is our What Worries the World study, and inflation is number one again, as it has been for 22 consecutive months. So the economy, of course, we'll need to be watching. We'll also be watching questions around populism and politics. Is it an advance or is it in retreat? Well, we'll know by the end of the year. We have elections in more than 50 countries. Two billion people will be voting, and each of those will tell a particular story, of course, about those countries.
We'll hear about the U.S. in a moment, and overall, we'll of course, be trying to join the dots and make connections about what it's telling us about the mood, internationally. We'll also, regrettably, be thinking about conflict and its consequences. We know that there are more than 100 armed conflicts in various parts of the world at the moment. We know that the public is a little bit unnerved by what they see, near consensus, that the world is becoming, more dangerous. In my own country, the BBC this morning, quoted, our own, one of our politicians, saying that we're now moving from, a post-war environment to potentially a pre-war environment. So it's huge questions about geopolitics and what that means for all of us.
Also raises questions about the economy, because we may be seeing a plateauing or indeed fall in inflation rates on average, but what do the Red Sea attacks mean? Another new question that we didn't have in our in tray a few weeks ago. What we did have in our in tray, of course, was climate change, and one of the big questions for this year is about just how urgent it is. Yes, the public do express concern about this. In our prediction study, we have 71% anticipating more extreme weather events in my country this year compared with last year. Six in ten say they can already see the effects of climate change in the area where they live.
But there is a but, when we ask climate change alongside other topics, as we do in our What Worries the World question, it ranks eighth when we're asking people about what's the biggest concern in their country. And so the question we have to continue asking is, is it urgent or is it just important? We see that here. Yes, people agree we're heading for disaster if we don't change our habits quickly. But the intensity of that feeling, if you look at the red in our chart, in many, many countries, the proportion agreeing with that statement has been on the decline in the last 12 months. Next question, and one which we may be watching very carefully in our own organizations, is what we're going to see at work, evolution or revolution?
The story about for office workers, where that ends up in terms of the balance of staying at home versus, being at work, is still being played out. And of course, the story of artificial intelligence, including its new powers, is perhaps starting to be even more played out. For now, the public feel it's more of a job loser than a job creator in their country. Are they right? We'll be watching. Final question on our in tray is about populations and, more importantly, around population change. We're gonna hear from Tayo about Nigeria and the population growth that that country is very much still experiencing, but many countries, like China, are now recording population decline for the second straight year. We've got more than 30 countries, in fact, around the world, which are registering a population decrease.
And we're starting to see the reality that demography, which may have been something that's a university course or something we might study at various points in our lives, is now politics. It raises big questions around, for example, what is our policy on immigration? It raises questions for countries about whether they can, or whether it's possible to increase fertility rates. It raises questions about whether countries or economies can increase productivity rates. So huge questions arise, and the public, in at least some of the countries, are now registering that this is a big topic. In these five countries, people are predicting that their population will fall in 2024. In other countries, the debate perhaps is still to start to play out, and Germany, in particular, is one.
We've got just over one in four people in Germany think the population is gonna fall this year. Well, that's exactly what the numbers are suggesting, so we'll be monitoring this question as well as we explore the changing contours of public opinion. So those are the topics we're going to be tracking this year. At the KEYS webinars, we'll be updating you on some of the latest themes each month, so we're looking forward to having you with us. We're looking forward to discussing also what the implications are for brands. A whole series of topics, again, we can have on our checklist. For example, premium brands versus value brands or local brands versus global brands. How to maintain empathy in a changing environment.
How to stay close, for example, to the middle classes, which Tayo will help us understand a little later on, and of course, what technology does or doesn't disrupt. So we're gonna be looking at that as well in our KEYS webinars, of course. One of the big frames we're going to be doing that through is our Ipsos Global Trends Study, which is reaching its tenth anniversary. So in the middle of the year, we will be able to reflect on what ten years of looking back and looking forward is telling us about where we go next.
But we're impatient to do that today, and so with that in mind, Mike is going to also take a look back and a look forward based on the work that he's been doing, and help us understand how different scenario planning, different thinking, can help us better understand today's context. Mike, thanks for being with us.
Thank you, Simon. As you said, I'm gonna take a look back to where we were in 2020 when we were doing some future scenario work, and then take a brief look at Canada. I can't help but sort of share a little bit of the Canadian outlook with everybody as well. So back to 2020, I had the pleasure and a great opportunity to work on this project with one of my colleagues called Shaping 2025 and Beyond. You can find the full report on our website. It was a fairly typical, I would say, future scenario piece, horizon scan, expert interviews, workshops. One big difference is we were focused on the outcomes of the pandemic. We were all living through the pandemic, so we were all wearing masks.
I personally, we had children at home, off of school. We were hearing about the economic and health tolls every day, so it was a very different piece from that perspective, and I think than we normally would do. We came up with four plausible futures. I'm only gonna talk about the Familiar Power, return to Familiar Power, 'cause that was the one we saw as the most plausible, today. But before I do that, I just wanna look at a little bit of the context that we were working in 2020, 'cause it seems like it was a long time ago sometimes, and then other times it seems like it was just the other day. Back to mid-May, June 2020, you know, we had views on the economy. We had a lot of uncertainty.
Vaccines were definitely accelerating, but they weren't here yet. It was late 2020, early 2021. At that time, people were expecting it to happen. The economy had rebounded or was starting to rebound much faster than we initially thought it was gonna be, in part because governments had injected a lot of funds in, or had at least hinted that they were about to inject funds in, and also because our clients, big corporations, small companies, had tacked and moved and figured out how to innovate, serve clients, and were really good at sort of keeping things going. On the flip side, we also recognized that there were some long-term costs on health and education that were unknown, and we didn't know where that money was gonna come from, given government spending.
Most of the pundits at the time thought that we would see sort of long-term unemployment sort of stay and increase. So that was sort of the mindset that everybody was in. We also had a lot of uncertainties on the other side, in the non-economic side, right? From a nostalgic standpoint, house prices were on the rise, affordability was a concern for people. And COVID-19, in just a couple of months set back, you know, in some places, a decade worth of gender and ethnic gains, ethnic minority gains. So that was a real sort of challenge and a worrisome sort of looking backwards.
We also saw some more progressive cues that we thought would be very interesting in terms of online communities that were organizing and working together, and a real rise in the social justice movement. So that was the context in which we set out to do the future scenario, and as I said, we came up with four scenarios. The most popular one or the most plausible one, was this Familiar Power, and that was 'cause we really saw people wanting to get back to normal. And back to normal meant, for us at the time, back to 2019. So we thought, we'll feel a lot like 2019, but less resilient, high debt, less stable. You know, we won't have made social progress on the areas where we would hope to make social progress because of the pandemic shadow.
The next couple slides, I've highlighted some of the storylines we saw coming out of the Familiar Power. I've put some in green, where I think we more or less were on mark or we're vectoring towards the mark, and some where I think we, we missed out. So in politics, we saw greater left and right distinctions forming. We saw limited progress on cutting CO2, and I don't think we've seen any serious reforms, at least across the board, in terms of investments or reforms into social programs. In brands, I, I think we do see that people are looking for more meaning in brands. We see it in our ESG work. Purpose is becoming a bigger factor.
We know that it's becoming an increasing factor, if not in the purchase decision, if the people are at least penalizing companies that are seen to be offside on that. I think we, at the time, and I still think so, we overestimated the impact of health. Yes, health is a bigger concern. Mental health has risen up, but brands that aren't attached to health directly, haven't had to tailor their attributes to say, "We're safe, we're sanitized, we're, you know, we're in a virtual world." So, you know, I think we were blinded a little bit by our COVID masks at the time into thinking that.
In terms of the environment, you know, we thought then, and we see now in our data, that climate change would remain a threat, and we see that people want progress, but they don't really feel it's their responsibility to make that progress. They think it's governments, it's companies, but on a personal level, I don't know if I should have to change my lifestyle to make it happen. And I think we've seen fewer international agreements or even local agreements than we would hope to have seen going forward. So I think we've seen a lack of progress than where we we'd assumed that we would see a little bit on that front. A little tip for people, if you're doing it again, if I had to go and do it all again, this is my considerations.
We tried, and if you read the report, you'll see regional variations. We tried to weave them in. I think the local context matters more than we thought. It would have made for a much longer report, which no one would have wanted, but I think in hindsight, you'll hear from Mallory and Tayo, how much local context mattered. I think it's really important to think beyond the present. Like I said, we were a little caught up in wearing masks and what we were living through and couldn't see beyond. At least I couldn't see beyond it in some of the pieces. And I thought it was really interesting. We talked a lot about change, but we didn't recognize the change would likely be things that we hadn't thought of, that weren't connected to the pandemic.
That they would be climate, aging, immigration, and that those things would have a bigger influence. And I think we, we underestimated the geopolitical tensions. We thought there'd be a lot of trade wars. We didn't necessarily thought, note the clear prospect for war. So I couldn't resist but take a little bit of time to talk about Canada. And I chose this slide because this is the stereotypic view around the world of Canada: peaceful, calm nature. In reality, we are by far an urban nation. We far more live in cities. This is not the reality for most folk unless they go away on the weekends or get away. And this calm, placid scene is not at all how Canadians are feeling about the world right now.
We run in Canada, actually. We run on Global Advisor in some 30 countries, the Ipsos Disruption Barometer. What it is is it really recognizes that citizen consumer sentiment has merged over the last half decade, decade or so. People don't think separately about their consumer issues and their citizen issues. They blend them. It's one of the drivers of ESG and why they want corporations to step up. When the citizen consumer sentiment, combined to the Disruption Barometer, is high, people are more open, tolerant, inclusive. They're likely to spend more, try new products, less critical of their service experiences, and you can have a more positive, upbeat tone. As you'll see in the next couple slides, this is not where Canadians are today.
So this tracks the Disruption Barometer from fall of 2018 through to November of 2023, late November. What you can see, I've broken into four groups. You can see pre-pandemic. Before the pandemic, sentiment in Canada was on a decline. People were concerned about longer term issues, failing institutions, cost of living, those kind of things. What the pandemic did, after the initial sort of scare, concern, and uncertainty of the first couple weeks, first couple of months, actually gave us a common purpose, gave us a focus, gave us a reason to focus on a single set of issues, and some unanimity, excuse me, around how our focus is gonna be. And it allowed us, more importantly, to park all those other issues and not think about climate change, and not think about housing, and not think about immigration.
And so we got a little bit of relief. Governments rolled out a lot of vaccines, cash came as well, and things seemed pretty good. Since then, we've gotten the Polycrisis square in the eye, and now we've started to see a decline. The combination of higher interest rates, inflation, the Polycrisis, worries about climate change. All the issues we parked and said, "Let's worry about them in the future," are now much more pressing and a concern for Canadians. And our sentiment, both today and as you look forward, is about as low as it's ever been. So just the bottom line for Canada, I'll put all four of these up. I think we'll see a more turbulent year in terms of the outlook, both the short term and long term.
I will expect challenges in consumer behavior, that is, in spending, more potential for labor disruption, more potential for social protests as issues arise. Interestingly, prior to the last sort of year or so, you know, the generations had different views, but they're all converging on this negative sentiment now, but for very different reasons, and that's making it a real challenge for companies and for governments to sort of address all those challenges at the same time, because they all have a different reason for being down right now. The mood is being reinforced by what we're seeing as an increasingly divisive political culture, and I think while we don't have an election scheduled, we're not one of the 50 million who have an election scheduled in 2024.
We do have one in 2025, and I think we'll see that be a big change election for Canada. So thank you very much.
Well, thank you, Mike, and thank you for that. Anybody who was stuck in Sarnia, Canada by the lake, and I know that was Canada, so that does exist if you want to go there. A good reminder, really, of some of the realities. I think we might come back to that before the end of the webinar. But I wanted you to come back to your opening reflections, because I think this mantra of thinking about what we now know about what we didn't know but wish we had known is quite an interesting one just to pause on. If you could just perhaps one parting piece of advice from that topic, if we were looking to do a similar exercise, scenarios 2030, let's say, what would be your advice to those of us on the call who might be about to embark on that?
Well, hopefully, you're not doing it in the middle of a pandemic, which definitely changed at least my personal outlook. But given where we were, I'd say don't get captured by the biggest current concerns or the biggest current issue. I think we took a look at this, and we said, "How will the pandemic change the future?" And we probably should have used it as a lens instead of as a driver. We should have said, "What's the normal path on social issues, technology issues, economic issues?
Where is that likely to go?" And then said, "Is there a reason the pandemic would accelerate, move that back, shift those gears, et cetera?" So rather than put the current big issues, say, today, it's if you're in some place where it's a geopolitical situation, at the fore, make it a lens, or if you're looking in a place where your focus is largely on the economy, make that sort of the secondary lens. Say, "What's the normal path?" And then say, "How will the economy change it?
Okay, great. Great advice. Thank you for that. We'll be back to you before the end as well. So thank you. Thank you, Mike. If you're looking at Mike's slides, you'll see he's mentioning the change election in 2025 that he's expecting. It's time now to go to one of the countries who is going to have an election in 2024. And Mallory in Michigan is going to tell us what we should expect or at least what we could look out for in the year ahead. Mallory, thank you for being with us today.
Thanks for having me, Simon. Hi, everybody. Greetings. I also chose a picture that is sort of emblematic of our country right now, the White House. You know, I think 2024 is a historic election year for many reasons, both here in the U.S., but also abroad. So I'm happy to join you today to unpack the political landscape here in America. Now, obviously, Simon touched on this in his intro, but one thing that we are watching very closely here is the economy. Basically, since COVID began to recede and inflation in the U.S. began to rise in early 2022, the economy has been the main issue facing the country. That continues to be the case, even amidst a little fluctuation.
I think one thing of note is that here in the U.S., virtually every issue is viewed through a political lens. Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, our two main political parties here, that tends to color how you view the world around you. But viewing the economy as the most important issue facing the country is something that we all have in common right now. And as Simon pointed out, Global Consumer Confidence, I want to drill down and look at U.S. consumer confidence here, which, if you look at that blue line, sort of at the top of the three, you can see that it's fluctuated quite a bit, especially in the past year or two, amidst, you know, the pandemic kind of receding from focus, inflation rising.
But one thing that's really interesting here is that there are other economic indicators here in the U.S. that signal that things are getting better, and that's certainly the message that President Joe Biden is trying to convey, with very mixed success. But, you know, inflation is at its lowest point it's been in quite some time. Inflation here in the States seems like it's easing, but consumers aren't really feeling it yet. And yes, there's been a little bit of improvement, but there does seem to be this greater divorce between perception and some of the other indicators here. Now, I mentioned that everything is sort of viewed through that partisan lens, and consumer confidence is no exception.
If you look at the years during the Donald Trump administration, from 2017 to early 2021, Republicans, his party, felt better about their own consumer confidence, felt more positive, more bullish about the economy. And Democrats were kinda lagging behind, lagging behind the national average. And then you can see right in the middle of the screen, in November 2020, when our last election was, which, by the way, it looks like we're headed toward a rematch between these two men, Biden and Trump, consumer confidence, basically, the parties got to parity, and then it flipped, when Joe Biden was inaugurated in early 2021, Democrats started feeling increasingly optimistic about their consumer confidence, and Republicans started pulling back and feeling more negative.
And so I think this is just a really great example of how the party that's in power, whether it's your party or the opposition, really does kind of creep in and color your views on a number of given topics. Now, let's dive into the election itself. As I mentioned, it's likely to be a rematch between these two men. But taking a step back, I want to talk a little bit about where we're at with just how people are feeling about the, the system, as it were. Simon called out that we're keeping a very close eye on populism and how that is unfolding, how those sentiments are unfolding across the globe. We've been doing the same here in the U.S., basically since 2015 and the rise of Donald Trump.
The particular flavor of populism that we see here in the States is that roughly two in three Americans feel that the economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful, that traditional political parties and politicians don't care about people like them. And, you know, here in the U.S., we have a very strong, clear two-party system. And then one that I think speaks to the, the rise and the power and appeal of Trump himself is this notion that America needs a strong leader to take the country back, and that's particularly prevalent among Republicans. So these populist sentiments, you know, the, the notion that the system is broken isn't new, but it's certainly something to contend with as we enter this election year as well. And currently, President Biden sits at roughly 40% for his job approval rating.
It's been interesting, despite all of the change, all of the fluctuation, all of his work that he's been trying to do to voice all of these positives around the economy, his approval rating has held remarkably steady in the high 30s-low 40% range. So pretty tepid from the public overall. But let's put that into some context. Here in the U.S., we've done an analysis of global Ipsos data and elections across the world, and what we've found is that an incumbent, a sitting president, with an approval rating of around 40%, has roughly 50/50 odds, slightly better than 50/50, in terms of their chance for re-election.
So despite, you know, any sort of tepid approval rating for the president, any grievances among Democrats or independents about Biden's age or other qualifications, he remains the best chance for the Democrats to achieve victory, for him to be re-elected in 2024. But I do think it's important to note, if he were to be able to just improve his approval rating by, say, three to five percentage points, those odds for re-election certainly improve. So that's something that we'll be keeping an eye on and tracking over the coming months. Now, on the flip side, the Republican Party remains the party of Donald Trump. As you can see, he's that red line at the top, and if you look at the primary race, he has a commanding lead.
So much so that two of the four lines on the screen, two of the four people running in that race, have dropped out. It is now a two-person race between Donald Trump and Nikki Haley. We've started to have primary elections and caucuses here in the U.S., in Iowa and New Hampshire, our first two states. Donald Trump has come out on top in both of those states, and it's looking increasingly like this is his race to lose. Now, obviously, I've spent the majority of my time talking about national sentiment and how Americans writ large feel, but I think it's really critical to remember that this is not a national election. Elections in the U.S. are won at the state level, and in fact, this election is likely to come down, as the past few elections have, to just a few key battleground states.
So the map is colored. You can see blue. Those are states that lean heavily Democratic in favor of President Biden and his party. Red states are our Republican states, and then there's only six states that are gray in the middle. If you look toward the top, you know, for those of you on the call that are not in the States, if you look toward the top northern part of the U.S., you've got three sort of clustered close together; Wisconsin, my home state of Michigan, and Pennsylvania, those upper Midwest states that played a critical role in the past two presidential elections. Donald Trump won in 2016 because of narrow victories in these three upper Midwest states. And in 2020, Joe Biden won all three of these states.
In the Southeast, you have the state of Georgia, and then in the Southwest, Arizona and Nevada. So these are the states that we, along with election analysts across the country, are going to be watching really closely. But of course, we're here today to also unpack what the landscape and what the election means for brands and companies. One thing, going back to this notion of declining trust in institutions, Mike, you highlighted that it's happening in Canada. It's happening here, too. It's happening everywhere. This is not a new phenomenon, but over time, Americans have really seen a steep decline in the level of trust toward all institutions, but particularly politics and government. And at the same time, their level of confidence in those running major companies has really kind of stayed flat.
The vast majority have a great deal or some confidence in major companies, while their trust in the executive branch, meaning the President of the United States, has diminished over time. When you think of the notion of looking for a strong leader here, Americans are increasingly turning to brands, to companies, to perhaps fill that void and pick up on different cues that they have to offer. Now, that doesn't come without risk. When we ask Americans how companies should or should not kind of wade into the fray here, a slim majority of Americans agree that companies should remain neutral on political issues, and we see a similar phenomenon when you ask about social issues. That's things like abortion, gun violence, immigration, et cetera.
This is particularly true for Republicans, a little bit less so for Democrats and Independents, so a little bit more openness with them to kind of weigh in on those issues. But it also does have real impact for a company's bottom line. A slight majority of Republicans and Democrats alike agree that if a corporation takes a stand on an issue that they don't agree with, they're less likely to buy their products or use their services. But I want to be clear here, what the data finds is that companies, you know, shouldn't just stay out of it and not say anything. But when you do decide to take a stand on an issue, do so authentically and make sure you're understanding your customer base.
Our data also finds that just over half of Americans feel that if a corporation takes a stand on an issue, they should stick by their decisions, even if it is off-putting or makes some folks angry. That's particularly true for those who identify as Democrats. So I think overall, the takeaway, especially in a year like this, is to just understand your consumer base, understand the issues and who you're trying to reach, and do so in a way that, you know, is authentic and not kind of wishy-washy back and forth.
Lovely. Well, thank you so much, Mallory, and you paint a very, very clear picture, both of the political scene and perhaps where businesses are adapting and responding. I really love the slide you had about the incumbent and the successor, based on the satisfaction scores, because, of course, that has parallels with brands, because we have often incumbent brands and challenger brands, and of course, looking at your particular scene now, you've got two kind of incumbents that are both at top spot.
So it's gonna be, I know it's gonna be like no other. For those of us in business offices thinking about how we can best communicate with the American public, you made the point about sticking to your decisions and staying authentic. And any other advice for us if we're to try to do as good a job as we can at getting the message across?
Sure. I think there's just a couple things to remember that, you know, the findings from our survey research on the topic tell us that taking a stand or not taking a stand can be risky, but I think caving to pressure may be even riskier. You know, for example, we saw some brands, Bud Light and Target, kind of facing boycotts this year for celebrating LGBTQ Pride Month, even though they had done so for years. And so really just understanding that many Americans, especially affluent consumers, are making values-driven purchase decisions. And so when you take positions to kind of take on some of these big challenges, understand the risk, but also understand, you know, and really know your customer base, who they are, what they care about, what causes they care for, or may be driving their purchase behaviors.
Lovely. Thank you. Very, very clear. Really great advice. So thank you also, Mallory, and we're gonna come back to you before the end of the webinar, but it's time now to go from the world's biggest economy to Africa's biggest economy. Tayo, thank you for being with us to tell us more about how Nigeria is weathering the storm. Over to you.
Thank you, Simon. The past couple of months has been quite turbulent and rocky in Nigeria, but somehow we are surviving it. But before I talk about the turbulence we've gone through, it's very important I talk to you about why Nigeria is the Giant of Africa. There are so many reasons why they call Nigeria the Giant of Africa, but I highlight a few. First, is the landmass. It's quite big, big, sitting above on about 900,000 square kilometer. It's got natural resources, natural gas, solid mineral, oil, we've got it all. It's the largest GDP in Africa, the 39th largest in the world. It boasts of a population of about 200 million people, making it the seventh in the world, and forecasted to be the second by 2100. Diversity is one of our strengths. Over 500 languages and over 1,000 dialects.
That means within a space of five kilometers, we can communicate effectively. It's got a very youthful population. About 70% of the population are less than 35 years old. On the flip side, wealth inequality and distribution is so ingrained in Nigeria. Looking at this chart, you will see that the top 1% owns about 1/4 of the wealth of the country, and the bottom 50, just about 5%. The middle class is big, no doubt, but what we see happening in recent times is the middle class shrinking. Unfortunately, it's not like they're moving up the ladder, rather, they're going down the socioeconomic class. So what does this mean? The poor are getting poorer, and the rich are getting richer. We had an election last year, and by May last year, a new president was sworn in.
He's trying to fix things, and the first thing he did was to put some reforms in place, and I'll talk about the best two or the top two ones that are really shaking us now. First is he tried to unify the dollar, the official and parallel market rates, so that it will promote transparency. But what's happening in recent times is the gap is getting wider, and the naira continues to fall. Secondly, you know we're a big exporter of crude oil. Oil is big to us. Fuel is big to us. They removed the subsidy we've always enjoyed on oil, and that has thrown the country into chaos. The retail price of fuel has grown by over 400%, and I'll use myself as an example. My new reality, actually.
Before the subsidy was removed, I used to fill my tank with about 10,000 NGN, which is equivalent to about, about $10. Now, I fill my tank with $50, the same tank, the same car. That's, that's ridiculous. That's a lot for me to bear. It speaks to tough times for consumers as businesses, as inflation continues to climb. The last time I checked, we're already inching towards the 30% rate of inflation. How are the consumers adapting to this, especially the middle class? I'd like to share how they're behaving, how they're shopping, how they're living. It's all about survival. When it comes to consumption, they've reduced the frequency of consuming their regular brand, no surprises, and of course, they eat more indoors now. It's quite expensive eating outdoors. Also reduced the number of times they eat in a day.
That's not good news. But more importantly, what worries me the most is there's a reduction in the quantity of protein in their food. Nigerian food is highly carbohydrate, so protein is a big deal for us. Protein is poultry, milk, fish, and stuff like that. So how are they shopping? Lately, the middle class have switched to cheaper brands, no surprises there, and they're searching to find where the products are cheaper. Despite the fact that they still stay loyal to their regular brands, they're reducing the pack sizes they buy. So buying in bulk is becoming history. Who doesn't like the freebies? They look for products on promotion. What are the lifestyle adjustments the middle class are making? We know electricity in Nigeria is a big challenge.
We all have generators, one or two, but nowadays, the middle class are using less of the generators because you have to power it with fuel. I told you, it's about 400% increase already. We love party, we love to enjoy. It's part of our culture. But what the middle class are saying they're doing now is reducing attendances, parties, or social events. And of course, we're switching to cheaper modes of transportation. Usually, it's probably the public transport, or we're pooling cars with friends and colleagues going to the same destination. Working from home is neither here nor there because it's a personal choice. If you choose to work from home, you have to buy fuel in your generator to power it. If you decide to go to the office, you need to fuel your car to do that. So it, t he choice is yours.
You have to choose. So what are they doing in terms of allocating their resources? We see that they're reducing expenses on non-essentials. As the expense of transport and electricity is spiking, they're reducing the CSDs, and also they're not going out anyways. Most of these are consumed off-trade. Interestingly, the brands are not sleeping. They're stepping up to the plate and trying to show some empathy to our consumers. And how are they doing this? They're driving accessibility with price, using pack sizes and formats. I told you about pack sizes earlier. But before I show you some examples, I just want you to remember that Nigerians are very big on brand appeal, and they are willing to spend extra for a brand with an image that appeals to them. You can see on this chart, we come tops across many countries in the world.
But now, taking a look at what the brands are doing, there's a lot of line extension in the, either in the space of flavors or small SKUs across dairy, across food. Everybody is going for small pack sizes, and sometimes they do the flavor. I don't know how well the flavors are working, but I tell you, the pack sizes are working. This really blows my mind, this innovation into new formats. Oral-B is a premium toothpaste, and what we see now is this toothpaste is available in sachet. So small quantities, it's quite difficult to put it on your toothbrush, no doubt, but at the price at which you're buying it, you can't go wrong. Hennessy is a premium cognac. Nigeria is one of the top markets for them, and they can't afford to lose this market.
And we see them also coming in as sachet to drive accessibility, so everybody in the middle class, of course, would have access to it. To wrap up, I would like you to remember this about Nigeria and Nigerians. It's a young population. 70% are less than 35. When it comes to life and inspiration, fulfillment for us is about achieving a prominent position in our career with a blue or white-collar job, and we will sacrifice convenience if it means we're going to get healthier products. Talking about the love for our country, it's very important to us that we remain different from all other nationalities. We want to stand out. But these days, we're not sure the country loves us just as much as we love her, and we're beginning to feel like strangers in our country. How do we choose brands in Nigeria?
I told you we're big on image. We tend to buy brands that reflect our personal values, and we don't really care about corporate social responsibility or ethically produced products. We just want manufacturers to make good products for us to buy. We are willing to spend extra for a brand with an image that appeals to us. Thank you. On that note.
Well, thank you for that guided tour. I've already got a couple of questions building on that from the audience. First one is on the gas subsidy. Why was that removed?
Okay. What's happening is that in the past few years, the government has subsidized fuel for us, b ut accountability has been a problem. All the money that comes from the subsidy, we don't know how it's been managed. And, of course, you know, there's so much corruption here, and I hate to say that. So it's gotten to a point where the government can no longer subsidize the fuel. The new president thinks it's a waste of money. Despite the subsidy, we are not making enough money to improve the life of people or to invest in infrastructure. So why? Let's remove it, and nobody steals the money. Yeah.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that. And another point actually has come up from the people watching, is around the inflation more generally. To what extent are other markets, for example, in West Africa, seeing this level of inflation or pressure?
I tell you, inflation, you know, is a global problem, no doubt about it.
Yeah.
But it's stronger in the western part of Africa. It's higher, and that is- largely Ghana and Nigeria. Ghana is way higher than Nigeria. I must tell you, they've been suffering or struggling with inflation in the double- digits for the past two years. For us, it all just started with all this fuel crisis and unification of the parallel and official market rates. It's more recent in Nigeria. You can see the chart I showed you, right? How we're beginning to climb, and it's really spiked this year. So, it got worse last year. 2023 was worse for us, but for other parts of Africa, there is inflation, but not as bad as West Africa.
Okay, fine. And before we go to Mallory and Mike, I've got a couple of questions come through for them as well. You actually ended by reminding us about the specificities of Nigeria. Excuse me, I can't speak. So what's the one takeaway that you'd give us on the call today that you would say, "Look, guys, if you want to understand Nigeria, remember this point?
Okay. To understand Nigeria, it's an interesting one. We're always on the news. Nigeria is always talked about everywhere in the media, but the caution I'm advising everyone to take is: don't believe everything you hear in the media, except if it's emanating from Nigeria. We're sure of the authenticity.
Secondly, the best way to really understand Nigeria and Nigerians is to have a Nigeria friend. We're very, very social, and we'll tell you everything. If you can't do either of the two, please check in with me, or Ipsos generally. We know the market very well.
Very good. Very good. Well, thank you for that one. We're gonna do some more quizzing on the, on our other two markets in focus now. Mallory, a number of questions we've sort of had about this point around companies, communications, and I think one of the things that seemed to be quite striking, one of your slides, was actually I felt that you laid out the challenges, but actually the level of trust in companies was holding quite steady in terms of business leaders. Is there anything more that we can reflect on that point? Because it did look quite a contrast, let's say, with how people feel about politicians.
Yeah, it certainly seems to be an outlier when you're talking about how trust is declining in major institutions. And I think that just helps to underscore the role that businesses have to play in our increasingly polarized society. There is simultaneously this expectation to take a stand and to, you know, show that you're paying attention to the key issues of the day, but that's not without risk. And so I think just for businesses understanding the level of responsibility that they have, but there is some inherent trust that comes within it. Ultimately, if business leaders can speak effectively to their customer base and understand, you know, who they're trying to talk to, what the issues are that matter to them, that's how you really resonate with and access- that consumer base that's really values-driven.
Yeah, I think we saw a bit of that in your presentation, actually, Tayo, with the brands thinking about the packaging and having to adapt them and regrettably have to make them smaller so that people could at least buy some of what they're used to doing. So, okay, good marker there about staying absolutely close to the customers and the consumers. Talking of customers and consumers, there's this question about demography and about populations being in flux and in some cases, declining. Mike, you know, what's the situation in Canada? Because, of course, you're a country that historically in recent years has had its immigrant communities at the heart of how the country has been shaping up. Where's the debate there, and how are people responding?
Well, and we still do have immigration as at the heart of sort of the future of the country. You, you put up the slide earlier about declining populations. The only reason Canada is not there is because of immigration. It's because of the net migration of the country. Our birth rate's at the lowest it's ever been, so it's all immigration. The challenge with immigration today, and it ties a little bit into the inflation discussion, 'cause we don't have overly high inflation relative to Tayo is living through. But our home prices have shot through the roof because we haven't planned for the net immigration.
So while the federal government has brought immigration in, that hasn't moved down into the provinces and the cities in terms of home starts, so we have a real supply-demand issue with homes. Home prices have increased rapidly. And that challenge and those pressures have started to have people push back and say, "Well, maybe we need to review immigration." When you ask about diversity, people say it's a great thing and we need to have more. When you ask about immigrants, people see the value, but now they're starting to question the process, the policies, and the planning acumen of our leaders in terms of immigration.
Yeah, so that brings into coming back to your point about looking back to look to the future. Maybe decisions that weren't made 10 or 20 years ago, maybe coming to the fore.
Yeah, yeah. And in a country like Canada, where we have, you know, several levels of government, their inability or unwillingness to talk to each other, and plan forward, when something is interrelated like that, causes these challenges.
Thank you. Thank you for that. Mallory, coming to you. Thank you for your geography lesson, for those of us based outside the States. I know we have many American clients and colleagues on the call, but always good to have that map, and it reminds us of the vastness of the country, of course. I mean, do you observe? I mean, I'm speaking to you from the U.K., which is, let's say, mid-market, and we're not the biggest country or whatever, but whether it's geography or different groups, are organizations taking a kind of one America approach to communicate, or are they segmenting by different geographies, or ethnicities, or age groups? Is there anything that you can reflect on as a keen observer of the market?
I don't think anyone taking a one America approach is probably going to be effective in their messaging, only because of, of how hyper-polarized our society has become. You know, I think as I said at the outset, the lens that most Americans look through is a red or a blue lens. Even folks who say that they're, you know, political independents, when you push them, "Do you lean toward one country or another?" They do tend to admit that they lean toward Democrats or Republicans, and there's very few sort of straight independents in the middle. So I think that's something to consider. I think where you get your news also plays a role, right? We know that news consumption is kind of starting to exacerbate some of these echo chambers and these partisan differences that have almost become like tribalized, right?
But I do think that demographic change is important here in the U.S. too. There are concerns about immigration. I think it has a different flavor than it does in Canada. But we know that, you know, in a matter of just a few years, the racial and ethnic landscape of the U.S. will look different, and it will no longer be a majority white country. Younger generations are much more racially and ethnically diverse, and that's something that I think politicians and brands alike need to be paying attention to.
Okay, well, thank you for that. I know we've got more, we've got more, in a bigger report that you've done that we're gonna share with people afterwards on, on, on these topics. So thank you for that, Mallory. I'm gonna come to you finally, actually, Tayo. But picking up on Mallory's point about diversity and indeed about size of the market, one of the things you reminded us about was how you have many, many different languages, and often it changes quite closely from within a short area if we're traveling around. What does that mean for communications, whether it's the media or companies? How are they communicating with the largest possible number of people?
Yes. With the diversity we have and the multiple languages we have, as a country, we had to find one common language everyone would understand. Find some of the multinational manufacturers leaning on that. And what is that language? It's English, Pidgin English. It's just a funky-fied style of English. It's the way we speak. Everybody understands that. Some of the manufacturers or the advertisers, depending on where the brand is targeted, they could use the local languages. So we also have some radio stations, TV stations, that speak specific dialects in certain parts of the world. So yeah. It's a mix of everything, depending on the strategy the brand has.
Lovely. Well, that probably sets us up for the coming year of KEYS webinars, a mix of everything, and we're gonna try and bring different stories to you, our dear clients and friends around the world, as we go through this year. So thank you very much, Tayo, Mike, and Mallory for being with us today. All of the slides that you've seen today and some bonus slides will be available afterwards, and we'll be sending those on to you. Talking of bonuses, we all have a bonus day in our lives, the 29th of February. So that seems an opportune moment for our next KEYS webinar. I hope you will be able to join us again for that.
And we're gonna be getting closer to emotions, and what they are, what they feel, and how they feel in different parts of the world. So I hope you'll be with us then. But for now, thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you to our speakers, and thank you to listeners for listening to us in English. We'll see you again sometime very soon. All the best to you.