The death of risk

Risk-taking behaviour is on the wane and it’s having an impact on brands, reports Future Foundation’s Karen Canty. So how do you sell the adventurous dream whilst acknowledging the safety-seeking reality?

One of my favourite new trends to emerge from the Future Foundation stable in recent months is the ‘death of risk’ – a far-reaching look at how risk is slowly becoming socially unacceptable, while safety morphs into the new morality.

You only have to listen to your parents talking wistfully about the pre-nanny state days – the days when kids could romp in a blissfully unconstrained way round the back of the car, when sell-by dates were but a twinkle in the eye of the government, when not smoking was considered odd – to see the steady drip-drip of ever-heightened safety awareness.

The result is that, as a society and as individuals, we have developed an aversion to risk to the point where we want it to be completely eliminated from our lives and society. The old ‘physical’ risks like smoking, drinking to excess and eating ‘bad’ foods have become more visible and less acceptable; while the newer ‘post-physical’ risks (identity theft, privacy concerns, national security threats) seem so bad that we’ll do almost anything to avoid them.

There are many strands to this story. It’s partly to do with the rise of the middle classes: with power, education and money come a heightened awareness of the risks of losing it all. It’s about technology: we have access to more information and can see more starkly than ever the risks facing us. As austerity bites, governments are campaigning against – and making us more aware of – the perils that face us on a daily basis – and consequently transferring responsibility for safety on to the individual.

There is also a fascinating Big Lie story at play here – an interplay between social norms and consumer reality. Many subscribe to the romantic ideal of mavericks – from our data, we can see that nearly 40% in the UK agree they admire people who break the rules occasionally.

Yet the proportion who strongly agree is less than 5%; and 50% also agree that “people should think about safety before fun/adventure”. The reality is that real risk-taking behaviour is increasingly seen as dangerous, selfish, even socially unacceptable.

Take heavy drinking as an example – once the preserve of the edgy, the glamorous and the socially alluring, it is rapidly becoming a taboo to be the one who endangers themselves and, by extension, stretches state funding, takes up valuable space at Friday night’s A&E and wastes resources. This is reflected in the fact that 40% of the UK population say they are making a conscious effort to reduce the amount they drink per week.

Or what about the ongoing Russell Brand/New Statesman/Jeremy Paxman debate? I get the feeling that while there is plenty of good feeling towards a long-haired maverick calling for revolution, action levels will be negligible. Shaking up the status quo that much is unquestionably far too risky.

This is not a British story. Consumers everywhere – from China, where the recently developed middle classes are looking to protect their newfound wealth, to France, historically known for its rebellious nature – are demonstrating more and more allegiance to a safe society.

Arguably, the one field where danger is still sanctioned is career success – the rise of global entrepreneurship is testament to this – but fundamentally, wherever you live, harm has become the new evil while safety is the new morality.

The impact for brands cannot be underestimated. How do you sell the adventurous dream while acknowledging the safety-seeking reality? How do you curate experience while managing danger, all without seeming to be contrived?

Do you take the safe (and boring?) route, or expound danger and risk alienation? We are already seeing loads of great examples of brands helping consumers to juggle risk within safe boundaries (the trend we call End of Adventure).

Take examples from the travel industry: we like Crowsflight, which allows tourists to wander foreign cities without ever straying from the right path; Heineken’s Departure Roulette, which invites passengers to ditch their travel plans (without much fear of a dud holiday); or CITYGRIT, a New York restaurant that has no set menu but instead an ever-changing menu based on themes and ingredients.

Thinking about the future, we foresee a seriously risk-averse environment. Thanks to the medical advances (artificial organs, holistic food pills, graphene anticancer drugs) and tech innovations (Quantified Self, wearable technology, death of the password) on the horizon, are we facing a future where personal harm is illegal, or even impossible?