Kiss Insight

MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION IS... 30 January 2012

With Christmas now a memory and the prospect of a double dip recession making everyone rather gloomy, we wanted to get to the bottom of what people thought about their year ahead, which politicians are no longer worth their while and how much money issues are pressing on people’s minds. But in fear of depressing you all a little too much we also wanted to find out what people’s hopes were for the year ahead and what New Year’s resolutions they’ve made. We spoke to over 1,000 Kiss listeners in December as part of our on-going ‘Listener Club’ research programme and here’s what they had to say...

18% of Kiss listeners have changed their political opinions in the last year, that’s compared to 26% this time last year – implying there is slightly more stability in political views now. Of those that had changed their views, a lack of faith in the government was the general feeling, as well as people switching from political parties as they feel disillusioned with their previous alliance. Here’s a word cloud which shows how political opinions have changed:

With politics in mind, we asked Kiss listeners to tell us how much or how little they respected a whole host of important people and services. Of the three main political leaders Nick Clegg fared the worst with 52% of listeners agreeing they had little to no respect for him. This time last year Nick Clegg also received the lowest respect from Kiss listeners showing that he has done little this year to gain public confidence.

Trust in the government in general has grown with 20% claiming to now trust the government compared to 16% this time last year as well as 26% trusting their local MPs compared to last year’s 22%. Perhaps the shackles of the expenses scandal have finally loosened and public faith is gradually changing. However it’s worth keeping this in context; although these figures have increased they are still far from high, especially when compared to the plethora of respect felt towards the NHS (75%), the fire service (88%) and the police  (70%). Despite the fiasco of the recent riots the police still hold a lot of respect amongst Kiss listeners.

Looking at peoples’ concerned for their finances, with 42% of listeners feeling affected by the government cuts this year it’s no wonder 55% of listeners are worried about their finances over the forthcoming year.  Listeners are planning to combat their monetary woes by going out less and eating out less, amongst a few others you can see below:

Now, as promised let’s move on to something a little more upbeat.

First of all we asked everyone who their role model is, giving them the option to pick absolutely anyone they wanted. Unanimously Mum and Dad won the votes of all our listeners. A select few celebrities crept into the list, Beyoncé is by far the most popular of the celebs, followed by David Beckham, surprisingly next on the list is Cheryl Cole and Rihanna. (To see some of our listeners talking more in depth about their role models check out our vox pops that we did last quarter on the subject here).

Whilst we had our listeners' thinking cap's firmly in place, we thought it wouldn’t hurt to stretch their minds a little further. We asked what great things had happened to them this year and what they were looking forward to next year. Everyone’s answers built up a magnificent list of joy from 2011 as well as a 2012 full of expectations and hope. As you can see from this word cloud about what people are looking forward to next year getting a job features fairly prominently!

Finally, we wanted to find what the hottest New Year’s resolutions were amongst our listeners. Nearly 2 in 3 said that they had New Year’s Resolutions and unsurprisingly the favourite three were  to exercise more (60%)  followed by lose weight (56%) and eat more healthily (53%). Interestingly though we see the effect of the tough economy on the next two most popular choices with 45% saying they want to spend less and 36% wanting to get a new job. What was also interesting, post the August riots across the UK, was that 17% of Kiss listeners have resolved to help their community more. (To see some of our listeners talking more in depth about helping their community check out our vox pops that we did last quarter on the subject here).

To add a bit of colour to these stats we also went out on the streets of London to ask our listeners directly 3 very simple questions; What was the best thing that happened to them last year? What are they most looking forward to in the next year? What are there New Year Resolutions? Check out the audio and pictures below:

If you'd like to know more, please email mark.crawford@bauermedia.co.uk