The consumer of tomorrow is a procumer, a professional consumer, an informed, enlightened consumer. <...> 82% said they wanted to have a single reliable, understandable source of information about the goods and the quality of these goods — Maxim Protasov, Head of the Russian Quality System (Roskaschestvo).

A request for significance is emerging. And we see this in books: number two genre that has grown in recent years is self-improvement books. <...> It’s in huge demand, and we see it in books, services that allow you to be lazy — subscription services, platforms. There are markets where subscription services ate up the whole market in general, they occupy 30% of the market. We must be ready that they (the audience - Ed.) will be determined to receive quickly, efficiently and with a minimal effort — Evgeniy Kapyev, General Director, Eksmo-AST Publishing Group.

What happens to the new young audience that we see? People begin to personalize their information, which they consume, and reduce not only its sources, but also its volume. The desire for endless consumption of information is reduced — Ruslan Novikov, General Director of Argumenty I Facty Ltd.

The trend that we see around the world as well as in Russia for several years now is an active healthy lifestyle. More than 84% of Russian consumers think about healthy lifestyle when they go shopping. <...> 77% of consumers on the Russian market, like all over the world, pay a lot of attention to the origin of the ingredients of the products they buy and believe that the quality of the ingredients is a major factor for selection — Stefanos Vafeidis, General Manager, Coca-Cola HBC Russia.

Consumers want to deal with a company that has a bigger goal, not just products that it produces, and this is the central point for PepsiCo — Laxman Narasimhan, Chief Executive Officer for Latin America and Europe Sub-Saharan Africa, PepsiCo.

They (Deloitte - Ed.) discovered that food producers react rather aggressively to these challenges. In 2016, 68% of large producers reduced sugar content in their products, 65% reduced salt content, and 50% of companies reduced the number of trans-fats in their products. Moreover, 88% of all newly launched products refer to segments and categories with low fat content, low sugar content or zero sugar content — Stefanos Vafeidis, General Manager, Coca-Cola HBC Russia.

If we talk about the type of new consumers, then, of course, they are defined by pronounced digital behaviour. These people, our future consumers, will look for services and products not only on the Internet, but on social networks, because the opinion of their friends, peers, colleagues is much more important to them than the advertisement that we post on the Internet. The banking sector is getting there, they get on social networks, into chats and actively follow the manner of behaviour that our youth, our new generation demonstrate today — Anatoly Pechatnikov, Deputy President – Chairman of the Management Board, VTB Bank.

Consumers know everything, all the information at your fingertips. There is already no way to get away from your obligations. That is, how you sell and what you sell will be visible to your consumers. You must comply with your obligations. This is the biggest change. It all starts with quality — Olaf Koch, Chairman of the Management Board, METRO AG.

If we talk about the trend of more allegations about quality than there were before, we do see that the number of promotional activities in retail chains is growing, and their effect is not very strong by now. But permanent special offers are unprofitable for retailers or manufacturers and are already ineffective for consumers. Therefore, now the networks are switching to trends and sending a clear message that they bring you quality goods — Maxim Protasov, Head of the Russian Quality System (Roskaschestvo).

Traditional media do not have the trust of a young audience. We see some absolute trust in opinion leaders and lack of trust in traditional brands. That is, bloggers, vlogers, any personalities that are vivid and interesting to a particular audience have a colossal level of trust, they have a multi-million audience. This brings out rapid and rough spread of fakes — Ruslan Novikov, General Director of Argumenty I Facty Ltd.

The volume of food sales via the Internet is increasing rapidly. There is indeed a big problem with standardizing product descriptions and photography. It happens so that all these companies take a photo of a Coca-Cola can simultaneously in different parts of the country and publish them on their sites. Naturally, this confuses the consumer, of course, this affects the desire of people to order — Mstislav Voskresensky, Managing Partner, Directfood.

There is a work group that is now working on creating a single catalogue of master data. Indeed, the information is not unified. First, it affects the manufacturers, who have to fill two hundred sheets to enter two hundred chains. Second, it affects the buyers, the adequacy of obtaining information. Third, this limits the ability to manage, operate and analyse information from online cash registers, which are now collected by operators of fiscal data. This is very deep data that could be used both by consumers and manufacturers for market analysis, and state regulators to make certain decisions — Maxim Protasov, Head of the Russian Quality System (Roskaschestvo).

It is very important to invest in knowledge, in adaptability, in human resources, in the industry. If you think that you will become a monopolist, and this is it, you’re happy, it’s nothing like that. Your ability to adapt will worsen because of lack of competition. I believe that in Russia there is a colossal problem related to distrust and the fact that it is better to drown a competitor than to build a healthy industry — Evgeniy Kapyev, General Director, Eksmo-AST Publishing Group.

We must teach the consumer to be a professional — Evgeniy Kapyev, General Director, Eksmo-AST Publishing Group.

Craft goods are difficult to investigate, but probably this is not necessary, because it is primarily a matter of trust. Do you trust this farmer? This is not a widespread industrial use of products. There are, of course, risks, but our task as Russian Quality System is to teach the consumer to manage these risks. If you buy from a granny, pay attention to a few simple things: colour, smell and so on — Maxim Protasov, Head of the Russian Quality System (Roskaschestvo).