SINGAPORE – September 26, 2013 – One in three affluents agree that the way they spend time is more important than the way they spend money, as revealed in a global study about today’s rich.
“Ultimately, we discovered that ‘time’ is more important than money and that affluent people most wanted to spend that precious resource with their families, enjoying enriching experiences with the people they love the most,” said Laura Simpson, Global Director, of McCann Truth Central, which released its ‘Truth About Affluence’ study on September 26.
The study showed that the primary indicators of affluence are subtler than the sort of conspicuous wealth that is seen on the ‘Rich Kids of Instagram’ and Sofia Coppola’s ‘Bling Ring’, McCann Truth Central said.
“To succeed in today’s market, there’s an opportunity for brands to develop a more modern understanding of the subtleties of affluence and resist the urge to rely solely on the obvious visual cues,” Simpson said.
No longer can brands rely on depictions of affluent people engaging in exclusive and opulent activities – Today the affluent male archetype is no longer the silver fox investor perched behind the wheel of his yacht. His hypothetical wife is not just a trophy with a vacant look on her face, McCann Truth Central said.
Dave McCaughan Asia Pacific Director, McCann Truth Central added: "Any discussion with the affluent in Asian markets like Hong Kong, Shanghai, Mumbai or Singapore in the end leads to three points; most people don’t see themselves as terribly affluent, because they are ambitious enough to always be looking at those who are “more affluent.” This is perhaps more evident in Asia compared to their peers in Western markets. In Asia they are overtly ambitious about their desire to achieve and that, as with global findings, as you become more affluent time becomes more of a factor than just wealth.”
“The Truth About Affluence” study is based on a quantitative 4,000-person online survey across 16 countries and 21 cities representing key centers of commerce and culture around the world. Qualitative in-home “dinner parties” with groups of affluent individuals in key cities were also conducted on six continents.
According to McCann Truth Central, the new rules of engagement required in today’s era of stealth wealth include:
1.Recognizing that Time Trumps Money
The research seeks to understand what truly matters to this unique group of people. Is it money that they are after, or something else? Overall, Affluents agree that the way you spend your money is less important than how you spend your time. Time is actually recognized as the most precious resource (33 percent), more so than mental energy (28 percent) and physical energy (16 percent), personal space (13 percent), or finally money itself (10 percent).
“There are two currencies in the world: money and time,” said a Chinese male dinner party guest, “Money has a price, but time is priceless.”
2. Honing Your Rich Radar to Locate the Stealthy Wealthy
Surprisingly, even affluent people have a hard time identifying fellow wealthy individuals the study found. The vast majority of global respondents (84 percent) agree that nowadays it is harder to tell how affluent someone is just by looking at them. In fact, the primary indicators of affluence were intangible. The top affluence indicator globally for both men and women was “poise and posture” followed by facial expression.
Secondary indicators were more external. For men, the next most important factor was their “shoes” (31 percent) followed by their “coat” (22 percent) and then “jewelry (16 percent).” Men’s shoes were particularly important affluence indicators in Paris, Sydney, New York, and London. For women, “jewelry” was cited as the top gauge of affluence, ranked number one in Europe as well as in Brazil. A woman’s “bag” and then her choice of “cosmetics” followed as signs of wealth.
Continued Dave: "It’s certainly true that “style” is a key clue to affluence. In the key Asian cities covered in our study we found that the affluent are also increasingly subtle about how they display affluence and recognize it in others. Overt brand “flashing” is not the right thing. Rather the affluent want to be reconized and recognize in others “quality” that may carry no distinct branding, but is recognizable by it’s design and finer features”
3. Building Fluency in Affluence Requires A Global Perspective
With affluence becoming more globalized, brands should look not only to the local community but also the global community to understand affluent people. Conducted solely in metropolitan areas, the survey sought to determine how affluent people viewed the various leading centers of culture and commerce around the world.
When global respondents were asked to identify the leading characteristic that led to their own affluence, 69% of Parisians said hard work, 42 percent of Stockholmers said passion and nearly one-third of the Affluents surveyed in Mexico City cited competitiveness.
Globally, respondents agreed that Paris is still the center of culture and fashion and New York is the #1 city in which non-New Yorker Affluents would most want to live. And not only was New York seen as the city where the most innovative people live and work, but it was also chosen as “the world capital of tomorrow.” However, Shanghai and Dubai were not far behind, and were ranked respectively second and third as prospective world capitals of tomorrow.
Concluded Dave: "Of course we found that people tend to nominate cities they know well as those the affluent of every region talk about. While New York is globally recognized and aspirational, Shanghai and Dubai were recognized as the cities of the future and within the Asian Affluent we talked to those two cities ranked much higher as being symbolic of both new wealth and influence as well as dynamic opportunities. And this is important as the affluent of Greater China and India were more likely than other regions to say that they believed their home countries were places where the opportunity to become a success was much more aggressive and much more open than elsewhere. And hence they are more likely to overtly look for the net opportunity”
