Nothing really new, but thought I would pass it along. From The Guardian and the Washington Post. -- Washington Post / Consumers want instant everything / Caroline E. Mayer Consumers want instant everything Life in the fast lane is getting faster. We're ready to pay whatever it takes for products that save us time Caroline E. Mayer No time to boil water? No problem - Lipton now sells a tea bag that lets you brew iced tea with cold water. Too much of a hassle to use both toothpaste and mouthwash? Colgate has come to the rescue, combining them in its "2in1" product. Need that filthy soccer uniform cleaned before a game that starts in an hour? General Electric sells a washer and dryer that can do the entire job in 30 minutes - just about the time it takes a GE Speedcook oven to roast a chicken. Increasingly, Americans have no time to wait for anything. They want to make life in the fast lane even faster. So, for those sun worshipers who can't take time to sunbathe (or even acquire a sunless tan with a colorizing lotion that usually takes four hours to work) Coppertone promises a natural-looking tan in 30 minutes with its Endless Summer lotion. For fast-food fans, McDonald's is experimenting with radio transponders that let customers pay by waving an encoded credit card or key chain. No need to stop and pull out a wallet, count the money and wait for the change. Americans "can't abide slowness," said David Shi, president of Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, and a cultural historian who has written books and articles about the United States' inability to slow down. "Waiting has become an intolerable circumstance. We get on an elevator and immediately rush to close the door button for fear of waiting 10 seconds . . . Technology has helped create products designed to save time: fax machines, express checkout lines, speed dialing, remote controls, overnight mail delivery, e-mail. But in saving time, these products are making us even more impatient." Since Clarence Birdseye developed the quick-freezing process in the 1920s, food manufacturers have been rushing to create convenience products to help cooks dash through the kitchen. Within the past year there has been an explosion of time-saving products that would have been unimaginable a few years ago. For breakfast, there's General Mills Milk 'n Cereal bars, with Cheerios on the outside and a creamy, real milk filling inside: no need to get out a bowl or a spoon. For lunch, there's StarKist's Tuna in a Pouch. Just tear open and eat - no need to find a can opener or drain the tuna. And for dinner, Classico offers It's Pasta Anytime, a packaged product that comes with the pasta already cooked. Just pour sauce on top and zap it in the microwave for a meal in three minutes, which is less than the time it takes to bring water to a boil. Why the haste? Erik Gordon, director of MBA programs at the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business, said: "It's because we think we lack time, and because we are conditioned to instant every thing. Televisions used to have tubes and take time to warm up. Telephones used to have slower rotary dials. Then they got touch pads. Then they got auto-dialers. Web pages used to be a miracle in themselves. Now if it takes 10 seconds to load, we abandon them." Some experts are blaming the Internet for America's growing impatience. "Expectations from our online experiences spill over into the real world, and we just don't have patience," said Anne Brumbaugh, assistant professor of marketing at Wake Forest University's Babcock Graduate School of Management. The demand for undemanding goods worries even some marketers who sell convenience products. "We've heard kids say they find it inconvenient to eat an apple or peel an orange," said Steve Luttmann, director of beverage brand development for Lipton Tea. "The convenience trend is starting to become a little absurd. People are looking for instant gratification." Of course, Lipton's Cold Brew tea meets a demand, Luttmann said. "We talked to a lot of consumers who all said they loved freshly brewed iced tea, but didn't want to do it themselves. They didn't want to spend the time boiling water." Cold Brew was an instant success when it came on to the market last year. Sales already account for 5.5 percent of the tea-bag market, not far behind the 6.9 percent market share held by the more established Tetley brand. StarKist had a sharp spike in its sales after it launched Tuna in a Pouch. It is now looking to use the pouch for different products, including prepared tuna salad. But Michael Mullen, spokesman for Heinz North America, which owns StarKist, said the company wasn't quite ready to offer a tuna sandwich in a pouch: "The bread would probably disintegrate; we're not there yet." But Smucker's is there, selling one of the world's simplest sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly, with soft bread. Uncrustables, which are being tested in several U.S. cities, even come with the crusts already cut off for finicky kids. The sandwich comes frozen: just thaw and serve. Such convenience doesn't come cheap: a box of four sandwiches costs about $2.40. But even though Americans are price-conscious, they will pay more to make life easier. "For the most part, Americans are cheap and lazy," said Harry Balzer, vice president of the consumer marketing research firm NPD Group. "How difficult is it to make a sandwich for your kid? But making sand wiches for your kid's lunch has been declining for the last 15 years." Computer customers are willing to pay top dollar for fast repair. Robert Riazzi, director of services, product management and marketing for Dell Computer, said many are willing to pay $160 for a three-year contract that promises repair service within four hours if problems can't be solved over the telephone. About a third of customers are seeking such contracts, up from 10 percent a few years ago. At gasoline stations it is illegal for customers to pump more than 10 gallons a minute. But oil companies are coming up with faster ways to pay. First, credit cards were accepted at the pump. Then, Mobil (before it merged with Exxon) introduced Speedpass, which requires customers to wave a card or a wand in front of the pump. Each card or wand contains an identification number that is read by an electronic sensor, which charges credit-card accounts. Exxon Mobil has since found that customers with Speedpasses visit their stations once or twice more a month than those who don't have the wand or card. The company is talking with grocery stores, video stores, drugstores and fast-food chains interested in using the system. "It used to be 55 miles per hour seemed quite fast," said Erik Gordon. "Now it seems like crawling. We're rats in our own cage; the faster we run on the treadmill, we find we have to run even faster." The Guardian Weekly 18-1-2001, page 33
