New research illustrates how consumers are engaged by medium.
If affluent consumers told you exactly how to engage with them, would you find that information helpful? Might those insights help you sharpen your marketing efforts?
A recent study asked affluent consumers about the marketing communications they might see across a variety of mediums and platforms – and asked them to weigh in on how engaged they are with those messages. I found the responses to be pretty insightful.
The survey, conducted by Shullman Research and published by MediaPost, noted the top platforms in which affluent consumers reported seeing marketing messages:
Perhaps you may be surprised to know that television remains the top platform, with 65% of affluent adults recalling they saw advertising messages during the past 30 days. Interestingly, when asked about their interest in the advertising, 61% reported that they had “considerable” or “some” interest in the messages.
Nearly half of respondents, or 48%, recalled seeing advertising on the second highest ranked platform: Facebook. Slightly more than half, or 52%, reported that they had an interest in the messages they’d seen.
Websites and emails tied for the reach rank of #3. The #5 rank was mail sent to the home, which 42% of affluent respondents reported receiving. Rounding out the top scorers were radio (40% of affluents), printed and digital magazines (38%), outdoor boards (38%), and newspapers (37%).
You may be surprised that traditional media platforms seemed to outnumber the digital and social platforms in the top performers. After all, I’ve always maintained that affluent consumers are more – not less – digitally savvy than mainstream U.S. consumers. But perhaps what this data tells us is that affluent consumers still consume (and pay attention to) an integrated mix of media. That’s important to understand as marketers build campaigns.
A few other points to note: The results in this study were self-reported. It would be interesting to see if there are any disparities between actual media consumption (as reported by the measurement firms) and the self-reported results contained in the survey. In other words, I’d like to see the actual media consumed by consumers compared to what they say they consumed.
Next, the study was linked to anticipated holiday spending, so I’m not sure how much, if any, that would skew the self-reported results. Finally, the study surveyed adults 18+ with HHI $75k or more. I generally think of Affluents as the 25 million or so households with $100k HHI, representing the top 20% of U.S. consumers.
That said, the data gives us yet another point of reference for better targeting affluent consumers. And that’s a good thing.
If you’d like to learn more about the study, follow this link.
